Living On A Prayer
by Faiakishi
Summary: I can see ghosts and auras. No one else can see the world the way I can. But nobody sees me. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Taiki 'Ghost Boy' Kayashima. You don't know me.
1. Papercut

_This ain't a song for the broken hearted..._

* * *

><p><em>I don't belong.<em>

That much was obvious.

_You'll never belong._

* * *

><p>I'm only part of this group because of Nakatsu. If you took notice of the way we sat during lunch, you'd understand.<p>

I sit on one side of Nakatsu, the outside of the table, reading a book most of the time. Noe and Sekime sit next to him. Mizuki and Sano sit across from Nakatsu. Nakao sits on the other side of Mizuki.

Everyone has a place at the table. A place that makes conversing with their best friends easy. Each place is a puzzle piece, together they fit together to make one picture.

_Except me._

I am the only piece that doesn't fit.

"Mizuki, are you really eating nothing but sweets again? I feel diabetic just watching you..."

"Don't hate on the sweets!"

"At least eat a piece of fruit or something..."

Sano and Mizuki arguing about her eating habits.

"Hey, Mizuki, that looks good! Can I have a sip?"

"You're such a creep."

Nakatsu battling for Mizuki's attention. And Nakao seeking to embarrass him.

How do they do it? Just chat over nothing at all? How?

"I told you, Elicia is totally getting me chocolates this year! You're just jealous because you don't have a girlfriend!"

"Sure. You just keep telling yourself that."

Noe and Sekime duke it out over St. Valentines Day.

Everyone fits perfectly into the puzzle. Everyone plays their part to perfection.

And I'm still on the outskirts.

_Alone._

"Look, Kayashima is eating a salad! He hasn't exploded from lack of sugar intake yet!"

I look up. Sano points at me, and the entire table whirls their heads around to stare at me. Everyone besides Noe and Sekime, of course, who are still deep in conversation about different types of chocolates.

Mizuki's aura has turned a muddy red, so I can tell she's become angry and Sano. I didn't want to incur her wrath, so I decided to defend her.

"Everyone has different taste in food."

I went back to my book, not caring enough to watch their reactions. Nakatsu changed the subject anyway.

That's about all the social interaction I can do. Even pointless small talk...a struggle for me. If it's just me and one other friend, like Nakatsu, I can deal, but I can't talk to a group of people at once.

I don't know how people do it.

"Hey. Kayashima." Nakao kicked me in the shin. I looked up to glare at him.

"Quit kicking me. I'm not a soccer ball." I said, then felt bad. Nakao was as closest I've got to a friend here at Osaka High, besides my roommate. He's the only one who will listen to me when I babble uncontrollably about the ghosts, and I'm probably the only who listens while he rants about his sexual orientation. We had a fragile friendship built on this. I didn't want to piss him off and jeopardize that. Thankfully, he ignores my comment.

"Are you feeling alright? You look awfully pale." Nakao's normally intimidating features were twisted into an expression of concern. "Let's take a walk."

Before I could argue, he grabbed hold of my hand and yanked me out of my seat. He led me outside of the cafeteria, into the freshly fallen snow. The sun was still setting; bathing the school campus in a red glow. Only I can see the spirits wandering the school. It makes the view even more beautiful, yet spoils it at the same time.

"Are you feeling alright?" Nakao asks me, after staring out at the scenery for a minute. "You seemed tense. And you were doing that thing where you dig your nails into your arm while we were waiting."

I was? Shit. If Nakatsu noticed...

_He'd be all over me._

I think Nakao could read my expression, because he chimed in to reassure me. "No one else noticed. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Was I okay? Depends on whose definition of 'okay' we were using.

He knows I'm not okay by his definition. He wants to hear that I'm not angry about anything, or that I'm upset over something, _but we both know that's a lie._

I'm upset over my aunt's definition of 'okay.' I have never been 'okay' in her standards. I've never even been acceptable to her.

Most of you know who I am. My name is Taiki Kayashima, and I see ghosts.

My aunt, my mother's sister, thinks I'm crazy.

Bu_t I really don't want to talk about it right now._

So I swallow my feelings and lie through my teeth to my friend.

* * *

><p><em>I've been this way...as long as I can remember.<em>

I can understand why people think I'm weird. I can even understand why they'd want to avoid me because of the ghost thing.

It's not normal. Even I can appreciate that. I'm not normal.

_But that doesn't make me crazy._

Even the heat of the shower can't stop the shivering. Ever since I spoke with my stepmother earlier today, I can't stop shaking.

_Psychiatric care facility._

I'm not going back. Never.

I learned of my aunt's distaste for me on my second birthday, when I proudly showed her a picture I drew of my family. In her eyes, all I should have drawn were me and my father.

But even though my mother died giving birth to me, I was able to draw a stick figure that resembled her.

My father tried to convince her, and himself, that I was only two years old, and I'd grow out of it, and she called me _the devil's child._

Bracing myself against the walls of the shower, I breathed in and out while I chased away thoughts of the tiny, antiseptic box she had me locked up in, three times before.

_It's okay...never going back...never going back..._

I was never like the other kids as a child. I never cried as a child. That alone I think frightened my relatives more than anything.

I knew I looked different. My eyes were darker than anyone else's.

_And I saw things they couldn't. _

I turned the shower off, and I heard Nakatsu bopping around our room. I quickly shoved my legs into my pants and sat on the floor. _Nakatsu's such a nice guy... This is going to destroy him. _

"Kayashima! You about done?" I jump. Nakatsu wasn't being impatient; he was simply asking a question.

"Just a minute!"

I waited until I heard him walk away. Slowly, I pulled out the pearl handled knife from it's hiding place in the back of the cabinet.

* * *

><p><em>The first time they locked me up,<em> I was nine and underweight. My body was black and blue because I passed out and fell down a flight of stairs. My father heard the crash and called an ambulance.

My injuries weren't bad. I cracked my knee and fractured my ulna, but they were fairly mild injuries compared to, say, a snapped neck.

I came to in the hospital, nurses swarming around me. My pain medications made it impossible for me to stay awake for more than twenty minutes at a time. Those first few days, I didn't do much other than sleep.

When I woke up without the weight of morphine on my eyes, my father was there, staring out the window. Just him; he hadn't married Miyako at that point. He told me that my aunt had spoken to the doctors, without consulting him, he adds; and told them all about my 'hallucinations.' It landed me three months in the nut house.

The windows in the insane asylum (psychiatric care facility, they kept telling me) were painted over black so we couldn't see outside. I really didn't understand this, I mean, do they think we're going to suddenly get better if we can't see the trees, or the sky? It just messed with my sleep cycle. Everything but the windows was white. The linoleum floors, the walls, even the standard hospital shirts we had to wear, though the state-issue jeans (same ones prison inmates were given; no pockets) were a normal blue. I thought I'd go completely insane thinking I was in the middle of a snowdrift. I thought maybe that's what they wanted.

I was given four pills a day; a circle red, a long green, a fat purple, and a white. The lady who handed out the crazy seeds was a whale. She was some nurse studying overseas; she was from America. She was so fat her skin stretched tight. The anorexic girls on my floor eyed her with fear. It almost seemed like they purposely put her there as if to tell them: 'this is why you stopped eating.'

My first night at the prison, I thought 'they brought me here so I'll really go crazy. Then they can lock me up and throw away the key.'

The doctors kept trying to get me to admit that I made it all up. The said since I was an only child to a single father with a busy job, I must be feeling neglected and seeing ghosts is just a way to get attention. I told them if I really wanted attention, I would think of better ways than landing myself in a mental hospital.

They also thought I was anorexic, (I wasn't) so they shoved food into me. I wouldn't have cared if hospital food was any good. If they really served that kind of crap to the real anorexics and not just crazies like me, it's no wonder they don't eat.

After a few weeks of trying to get the quack doctors to understand that no, I was not hallucinating, there were really ghosts about and they just weren't sensitive enough to see. I figured out the only way they'd deem me 'sane' and let me loose on society was to see what they wanted me to see and tell them exactly what they wanted to hear.

I made stuff up about being home alone and having no friends; they nodded and smiled at me. Told me I was a good boy.

For three weeks, I lied and lied and lied to get out. I endured snotty comments from the other boys on my floor; I put up with my roommate stealing my clothes while I was in the shower. I didn't want to make waves. I didn't want to do anything that might delay my release.

When I moved back to my father's, the doctors told him I'd been cured; or whatever. I was just lonely. Dad bought a cat. She was pure white, with icy eyes. I named her Hikari. She used to curl up on top of my feet as I slept.

Something must have been wrong with the doctor's calculations, because even after I left, _I still saw the ghosts._

* * *

><p>"Kayashima! Are you alright in there?" Nakatsu's voice yanks me out of my stupor. He isn't annoyed at having to wait for the bath; there's concern for me in his voice.<p>

"Yeah, just a second!"

I grabbed hold of the knife, positioning it carefully over the inside of my forearm. Old scars jump out at me; proclaiming my many sins.

_You have to do this, Taiki. There isn't another way._

I use my index finger to push the tip of the knife into my skin. There is no pain yet, just a needle-like sensation.

_Do it. Do it now._

I breathe. Inhale.

And slash.

_Ahh._

Warm blood rushes up and slides down my arm. The anger I've been holding in all day dissolves. I feel almost weightless.

Holding the already bloodstained towel to my arm, I reach for my sweater. I slip my intact arm into one of the sleeves, then I carefully thread my other arm through the other sleeve. I wrap the knife in the towel and stow it back in it's place in the cabinet.

The knife was part of a set my father inherited after my grandmother passed away. While my father wasn't looking, I slid it into my bag before I left for this place.

Nakatsu runs past me on his way into the shower. He doesn't say anything to me. He's completely unaware of what I was just doing to myself.

_No one would care, anyway._

I pick up my phone. It's Friday night. Usually I call my father on Friday nights, but his wife called me today to tell me my aunt wants me put in a straitjacket.

Does that take care of the parental communication obligation for the week, or do I still need to speak with the man who donated the sperm to my existence?

I run my fingers through my soaked hair. So many decisions. Why would anyone want to be social? There's so many things you can do wrong.

It's snowing outside. You know, I feel like a walk. I'll decide whether to call my father after that.

* * *

><p><em>Everybody has a face that they hold inside,<em>

_A face that awakes when I close my eyes,_

_A face that watches every time I lie,_

_A face that laughs every time I fall._

_It watches everything._

_So that I know that when it's time to sink or swim,_

_The face inside is haunting me,_

_Right inside my skin._

* * *

><p><strong>Ok, so there's a long story behind this. I wrote a one-shot on Kayashima before, and, basically, it was a piece of shit. I deleted it like, twelve hours after it went up. Then I decided to try again with another one-shot, and it just. Kept. Growing. I think I was at 7,000 words before I realized that I was nowhere near the end, and it was poor quality anyway. (I kinda feel like this wasn't very good either)<strong>

**So I think Kayashima is the most awesome character ever. I've only read 1-14 & 19-20 of the manga and watched 1-7 of the drama (mind you) but it doesn't seem like Kayashima has that big of a part... Also, my twin brother is also named Taiki (So Kayashima would have automatically been our favorite anyway) and he's suffered from depression and he's cut himself for years. This is kinda a coping mechanism for me. So forgive me if Kayashima ever acts OOC, I'm probably just confusing him and my brother. **

**Oh, and I heard somewhere that Kayashima's mother died giving birth to him (I heard it...didn't just make it up) and his father is a priest or something, is this actually true or did someone else make it up? Did it actually tell the story of Kayashima somewhere in the manga or the drama? If so, then I am embarrassed...**

**Alright, this is my very first story I'm daring to post on Fanfiction, I have an account on FictionPress (but you'll never find it) buuuut that's it. So constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.**

**-Kameko**


	2. Haunted

_Long lost words whisper slowly to me._

_Still can't find what keeps me here._

_When all this time I've been so hollow inside._

_I know you're still there..._

* * *

><p><em>'You killed your mother.'<em>

Of all the accusations and insults my aunt could toss my way, that one has always hurt the most.

_'If your idiot father hadn't knocked her up, she'd still be alive right now.'_

Well, I guess that is true.

The town looks pretty at night, covered in snow. Little brick buildings line the sidewalk, their windows brimming with bright Valentines Day merchandise. It's almost spring, but there's an unseasonable amount of snow on the ground. Nakatsu will complain about a snowy soccer field if I come home.

What if I didn't go home? What if I just walked away from the town, or some random guy threw me in his car and drove away? What if I just laid down in the snow and went to sleep? Would my friends worry? Would they call the police if I didn't show up by sunrise? Would they-

_No._

That's right. They probably wouldn't care at all.

I continue walking. The wind has stopped, but snow is still falling so thick I can hardly see two feet in front of me.

I like the snow. It's cold. Quiet. _If I close my eyes, I don't have to see all that whitewhitewhite..._

I keep my eyes open.

I'm nearing the cemetery now. I don't really want to go there, see all the ghosts rattle their chains at me. At school I have charms to keep them away from me, unless I want them there. I don't want old men breathing down my neck, chiding me for doing homework rather than something manly like chopping wood or raping little girls or whatever the hell else they did when they were my age. I don't want to comfort the young women as they yearn for their husbands or boyfriends.

And I really don't want to look into the eyes of the little children who died far too young, who stop their games to stare at me as I pass by.

They stay away from me at school. But I do have to face them sometime.

Besides, I've always been much more comfortable with dead people than the living.

The cemetery gate creaks as I open it and step inside. Those who weren't already look up and stared. They come to me as I walk; like moths drawn to a light. They know I can see them.

The wind picks up again, swirling black snow and bone dust around me. A few more feet and the weeping willows protect me from the wind. Tombstones stick out of the thick layer of snow, like gray birthday candles in white frosting. The mausoleum stands in the middle of the small graveyard, like a church.

I am the only one here. I'm only one of many.

I walk up the stone steps to the mausoleum and step inside. Instantly, the air grows twenty degrees colder, as if the rotting bodies in the walls are giving off their own chill. The ghosts yell at me and tell me they're just trying to get some sleep. I flop down on the bench and tell them same here.

* * *

><p><em>Before I was Taiki 'Ghost Boy' Kayashima, before everyone knew I was I freak of nature, I was just Taiki. <em>When I was just Taiki, my father loved me and used to take me in his lap and tell me the story of how my parents met.

Once upon a time, man meets woman. Man desperately falls in love, but woman has boyfriend. Man battles to win woman over and whisks her away on a white horse. Man and woman get married and live happily ever after.

Until woman has child, _who kills her_.

The real story is not so poetic. Mom had a boyfriend who beat the crap out of her on a daily basis. Mom met Dad in a bar, Mom and Dad get drunk, Dad knocks her up. When she found out she was pregnant, she left Asshole and married Dad. They couldn't stand each other by the time I was born, so it only seemed right that Mom had a heart attack right after my birth and died before the doctors could do anything.

I see my mother a lot. I don't mind her around me at school, because she's never spoken to me in my life. She just sits and watches me, smiles sometimes, but most of the time she has a sorrowful expression on her face.

_I disappoint her._

Of course, if you die to give birth to your child, shouldn't you be allowed to hold high expectations for that child?

My mother just shook her head when my aunt yelled at me. Laughed when my father spun tales of their love from sugar and broken dreams to satisfy my questions and make me sleepy enough to go to bed. And cried when I was cornered by the boys in my class who used to beat me for nothing more than _seeing things they were too blind to see._

I can speak to ghosts. I can hear what they have to say. I could hear my mother, if she decided to speak up.

But she won't speak to me.

My father tried his hardest to raise me on my own. But he was a business man, hardly home enough to sleep in his own bed, much less care for a son who saw dead people and cut open his own skin.

He got me a nanny. A nineteen-year-old high school graduate who lived on our block and wanted to take some time off and save up some money before she went to college.

I told her about my mother. About my grandparents, and the other various ghosts that decided to attach themselves to me.

She did the same thing as my father, lying to herself that I was only a child and all children make things up.

She made it until I was four years old, then she ran.

After the third nanny left, when I was six, my father was forced to admit that I was not the normal, bright little child he wished I was.

_Well, that's too bad. Sorry I can't be perfect._

My aunt continued to insist I was possessed. Said that my mother's death should have told them right away that I had the Devil in me. She also told my father that there was no way I could be his, my eyes were far too dark and my coloring too pale, and what were the chances he got Mom pregnant with one drunken hookup when she was sleeping with her boyfriend every other night?

My father told her that if that's what she thought of me, than she was welcome to stay the hell out of our house.

She never did stop trying. She knew that as long as my father had custody of me, he would let me see these things and wouldn't try to beat some sense into me. She wanted to put on rubber gloves so she could hand me over to the professionals and tell them to experiment at will before scrubbing her hands with antibacterial soap.

She tried to have me DNA tested once. A man couldn't possibly want to take care of a sick son who sliced his skin to free his bones, and if the little freak was another man's child, he didn't have to.

My father refused. It would have shut my aunt up if my blood came back same as his, but the odds were that I wasn't, and I could tell _he really didn't want to know._

* * *

><p>I don't know how long I lay on that cold bench. Finally, the ghosts bang on the walls and tell me there was no room for Taiki in the clubhouse, no sir. Only for bones and decomposing flesh. Living and breathing people not welcome.<p>

I'm not welcome with the living either. Isn't that funny? You won't accept me until I don't breathe and my heart stops beating and they cart me in here, pale and dead. Then it's no problem. But even though I'm alive, living people don't want me either.

That's why being dead is a better deal. You just have to die to get in. Living is a whole lot harder.

The ghosts won't let me sleep with them, so my only choice is to go home and pretend to sleep there. The wind has picked up again as I walk across the cemetery. The ghosts wave at me as I leave.

My mother is not buried here, but she is standing at the gates, waiting.

As I leave the protection of the cemetery, I see a car speeding on the road, headlights blaring in my direction.

_Just get it over with. Just step out into the streets. They'll never see you in time. It'll be over before you know it._

My mother's hand on my shoulder. She doesn't want me to end like this.

The car whizzes by, oblivious to that fact I just saved them a 911 call. My window of opportunity closed.

_Damn._

I wish she would just talk to me. Tell me how she wants me to do it. Because the only time she hasn't stuck her nose in to stop me, my father found me and it was all over before it even started.

I continue walking in the direction of my school. Some of the ghosts from the cemetery follow me, at least until they get bored and go home, back to their cold graves.

I end up in a grocery store. I have absolutely no idea how I got here; one minute I was standing up to my shins in snow, next I was standing in front of the painkillers, aisle 4. The snow from my boots melt onto the floor. My wet sweater clings to my body.

The heat of the building does nothing to warm my bones, rods carved from ice and wrapped with broken glass and barbed wire. The cut on my arm has opened up again. I can feel the warm blood trickle down my arm, like boiling water on my skin.

I pick up a bottle of aspirin and read the warning label. _Maximum dose: 2 tablets. Do not exceed four tablets in an eight hour period._ How many pills in a bottle? 50. So you could safely take twelve pills in one day, so in four days you could have taken 48, leaving one dose at the start of the fifth day. _Or you could take it all at once. Get it over with._

Doing menial math usually keeps me from actually thinking.

I count the bottles of pills that have that particular brand name on it. And the other ones. Then I move onto antidepressants, bandaids, and toothpaste. Anything to keep me from actually thinking.

"Hey. Kid. Are you gonna buy something?" I look up. The pharmacist, a twenty-some year old guy with a goatee is staring at me. My eyes dart away from his. He continues to eye me quizzically.

"Sorry." I managed to mumble, them grabbed tube of toothpaste and left the aisle.

I grab a candy bar and a couple of cheap tabloids at the check-out line. I shake my head at a bag and stuff the toothpaste in my pocket and slid the tabloids in the waistband of my jeans. I unwrap the candy bar and munch as I walk away. The taste explodes onto my tongue, sweet chocolate and sticky caramel. I'll read the tabloids when I get home. They're always good for a laugh.

I toss the wrapper into a garbage can as I step outside. The wind has slowed quite a bit, and the snowflakes were small and glittery.

I don't really want to go back home. But I've already did my shopping (I really did actually need more toothpaste) already gotten yelled at by the ghosts in the cemetery, there really isn't anyplace else to go.

I just walk. I don't think about where I'm going, I turn off my head and I walk. I recite passages from books and count backwards from one thousand to chase all thoughts of anything away.

I don't know where I am when a police car drives up to the side of the road and a uniformed police man steps out. The store I'm standing in front of is still open, the window has teddy bears and red hearts set up. Past that there are rows and rows of Valentine's Day cards and stuffed animals inside the brightly lit store.

"Hey, you. What's your name?"

I saw no reason to lie. "Taiki Kayashima."

"You go to Osaka High?"

"Yeah."

He stares at me for a moment. My heart pounds. Did Nakatsu call me in missing or something?

"That's pretty far to walk. Especially with no coat on."

I didn't feel like putting my coat on. It doesn't keep my warm anyway.

"I'm sorry, sir." I bowed. "It won't happen again. I really should be going back to school now."

I turn away, but the officer's voice brings me back.

"Hey, wait, I can't let a high school student walk three miles back to school in the middle of a blizzard."

Three miles? Wow.

"Get in the car. I'll give you a lift."

"You don't have to do that."

It's not that I don't trust him. His aura is a deep red, so I know he poses no danger to me.

"Actually, I do. You could freeze to death out here. Against my policy to allow a minor in a potentially lethal situation. Get in the car."

I would have actually preferred to walk, his car wouldn't warm me up no matter how high he turned up the heat. But I suppose it was late, and if I wasn't back soon, Nakatsu probably would make a big stink about it.

I thank the officer and got into the passenger seat of the cruiser. He opens the door to the driver's side and slid in before taking a look at me.

"Umm...maybe I should drive you to the hospital instead. You're lips are purple."

"I'll be fine." I hear myself say.

He shrugs and turns the key in the ignition.

"Suit yourself."

* * *

><p>My father married Miyako because of me.<p>

A few years after my mother died, my father's family began to chide him about finding a 'respectable' wife for himself and a 'suitable' mother for me.

The problem? Me. It was the same thing as the nannies my father hired to take care of me as a small child. They thought I was cute on the outside; poor little Taiki, mother died so young; but the first thing I usually did was tell them what color their aura was.

One woman slapped me across the face and walked right out of the front door when I told her her aura was a scary shade of pink. Thankfully, most of the women just laughed nervously and told my father I was adorable. They'd always make up a reason why they had to stop seeing him when he called them the next day.

Miyako was a woman who attended college classes part time and worked at a small psychic shop in Tokyo. The first time my father brought her home she was wearing a black hijab with purple beads sewn into it. They clicked together whenever she moved, so she always sounded like a beaded curtain. I really have no idea why she was wearing a hijab, she wasn't a Muslim, but she seemed partial to them.

She was the first person who made me feel like I wasn't a freak. She told me I had a gift.

Ha. I know she would just _love_ to be able to talk with the paranormal. She would love to be able see people's auras and speak with their dead friends or parents or lovers-it would be a great boom to her business.

She hadn't been cursed with these abilities since birth. She didn't know how the spirits latched onto me as a child, _and prevented me from being normal._

She was in her early twenties, fairly attractive, and besides the way she dressed, she could be fairly normal around people when called to be. She treated me well, and she had a nice shade of blue for her aura, so I trusted her.

When I was eleven, my father married her.

Miyako is not the evil stepmother of my life. Quite the opposite, actually. Miyako didn't try to suffocate me by trying to make up for eleven years I experienced of motherlessness. But she didn't try to push me away, the misfit son of her husband's first wife.

Miyako will never truly be my mother. She understands that. But she's close.

My father cares for Miyako, and he's grown to love her, but he would have rather had the luxury of waiting and marrying whomever he wanted. He never said anything, but _I knew he blamed me._

* * *

><p>I thank the officer as he drops me off at the school gates and apologize for making him go out of his way. He just tells me to take a hot bath because my lips are still blue and the blood in my skin is still ice.<p>

Ashiya and Noe are in the common room playing hearts when I walk in. They look up and Ashiya jumps up when she sees me.

"Kayashima! Where were you? Nakatsu's been freaking out!" I look at the clock on the wall. It's nearly eleven. Damn. I have been out a while.

"Yeah, he said if you weren't back by midnight, he was waking Nanba up." Noe added, taking a sip of strawberry juice. I took the tube of toothpaste out of my pocket.

"Sorry. Went out to get some of this, then I got distracted and lost track of time. I didn't mean to worry anyone." Mizuki's face relaxes.

"It's alright. But you should take your phone with you. You know Nakatsu." She rolls her eyes. "He worries about everyone."

I apologized again for making them worry, then Sekime came out of the bathroom and I had to explain yet again why I was gone for four or five hours.

After Sekime sat down and they resumed their game, I walked up to my room. I really didn't care about the wet clothes, but I'd catch a cold if I didn't change into something dry soon.

I swung open the door to my room. Nakao was sitting on the staircase up to my level when I walk in. Nakatsu is sitting at his desk, playing solitaire, and Sano is lounging on Nakatsu's bed. They turn when I enter the room.

"Kayashima! There you are! We were just about to send out a search party for you. Nakatsu stands up, a goofy grin on his face.

"Where were you?" Sano asks, staring up at me quizzically. We told Nakatsu not to worry, but you were gone a long time, and you didn't have your phone."

"I just needed to go out to the grocery store and I lost track of time." I pull the tabloids out of my jeans and toss it on top of Nakatsu's card game. "Sorry. I just forgot my phone."

They know I'm lying. I can tell by the way they're staring at me. And why should they? I'm a terrible liar.

"Here. Get out of these wet clothes. My God, Kayashima, your skin has turned blue..." Nakao gets up and runs over to me, trying to undo the buttons on my sweater.

"Nakao! God, I can undress myself." I snap meanly. I shove his hands away, ignoring the hurt expression on his face. I reach up and try to unbutton the rest of the sweater myself.

I can't let them see me with my shirt off. It would ruin _everything._

My fingers were stiff from the cold. The skin was colored blue, and they wouldn't work for me. I fumbled with the button for a minute before Nakao removed my hands from the top.

"You can't. Just let me help you. You need to warm up..."

"Get away from me!" In a panic, I shove Nakao away from me. Shocked, he grabs the sleeve of my now-unbuttoned sweater and pulls half of it off.

Nakao stops when he sees the scars. The sweater falls from his hand, and I stand still, thinking maybe I could escape this, and the weight of the rest of the top causes the rest of the sweater to fall to the floor.

* * *

><p><em>Watching me,<em>

_Wanting me._

_I can feel you pull me down._

_Saving me,_

_Raping me,_

_Watching me._

_I won't let you pull me down._

* * *

><p><strong>I really didn't mean to make Nakao seem like a dirty old man, but that's all I could think as I wrote that...oh, Nakao. How I love you.<strong>

**This chapter was mostly just Kayashima rambling aimlessly about his life. I'll stop ignoring the other characters from here on out.**

**Confession: Until I wrote this chapter, I had absolutely no idea how to spell 'mausoleum.'**

**So that review button? Click it. It's not a request. I'm ordering you to.**


	3. Hello

_Playground schoolbell rings._

_Again._

_Rainclouds come to play._

_Again._

_Has no one told you she's not breathing?_

_Hello,_

_I am your mind giving you someone to talk to._

* * *

><p>Time stops. I stand, shirtless, my scars visible to the closest people to friends I've ever had.<p>

Nakao's eyes widen as he takes in the marks. I watch his eyes travel up to my face, his eyes sparkling with sympathy and sorrow. He moves and I can see Sano over his shoulder. He hasn't seen it yet, but when Nakao turns, he stops moving. I see him take in the crisscrossing scratches on my arms, the red marks roping around my torso. And most importantly, the long, still bleeding cut on my left forearm. He doesn't look at my face. He just looks away.

I don't look at Nakatsu. I can't see the pain in his eyes.

"Kayashima! What the hell?" Nakatsu hisses. He crosses the room and holds up my right arm, which I don't see, because I'm staring at the floor.

"Nakatsu, don't antagonize him. That's probably the last thing he needs."

"Fuck that!" Nakatsu yells at Sano. My head jerks up at the shock of Nakatsu cursing like that, and I make the mistake of meeting his eye.

Utter disappointment.

"What's been going on, Kayashima? What are you doing? Because if I find out you're cutting yourself-"

"I am." I say in a small voice. I refuse to look at any of them again. The ground won't judge me.

Nakatsu sucks in one long, shaking breath. He puts his hands on my shoulders and forces me to face him. I keep my eyes down.

"Kayashima. Please. I'm begging you. Look at me." I won't. Because if I look at you, _I'll fall to pieces and you'll ruin everything._

Ruin everything I've worked for. He'd tell Umeda. He'd call my father. And I'd be slammed back in the nuthouse faster than you can say 'Ashiya is a girl.'

"'Shima?" Nakao pipes up. "Please do what he says. We're just worried about you."

"Just leave me alone." I push Nakatsu away from me, which is a stupid thing to do, because he's fast and strong and Nakao and Sano are both there anyway. But they're slightly dazed and Nakatsu is the only one who would dare touch me, so I get past them and up the stairs without being caught.

I push back the beaded curtain and step in. I can hear someone (heavier, so probably Nakatsu) start to ascend the stairs, but stops.

"Why don't you let me handle this? You're too upset." I can imagine Nakatsu's reaction. He'd look up, stare at Sano for a second, then nod. That must be what happened, because I hear a door slam shortly after.

I pull a sweatshirt on. I don't need anyone analyzing me. I quickly strip off my wet jeans and toss them onto the floor. Sano walks in as I'm pulling up my pajama pants. I keep my back turned to him.

"I'm just going to get some sleep." I tell him, still not facing him. I grab the covers of my bed and start to turn them over when Sano's hand on my arm stops me.

"Taiki." My given name falls out of his mouth, his tongue stumbling over the unfamiliar letters.

"No one here calls me that." I tell him.

HE called me by my given name. HE is the only one who considered himself important enough to use the name given to me at birth.

"Kayshima, then. Sorry." Sano says, relieved. He turns me around. He's a full head taller than me, so I don't necessarily have to look down to avoid eye contact. He keeps his hand on my shoulder.

"Look, I know we're not really good friends, even though we've been living next door to each other and having Nakatsu latch onto us for almost two years, but..." He trails off, unsure of what to say next.

"It's okay." I tell him, daring to look up. His body is turned towards mine, but his face is turned the other way. "You don't have to say anything."

"Of course I do." He looks down at me. "You're hurting yourself. Whether we're close or not, I still consider you a friend." I turn away. Sano sighs.

"I'm not gonna force myself onto you. I can tell you're really not comfortable talking about it, and that's fine. Just...try to talk to someone. We're all your friends here, and Nakatsu cares about you a lot." He runs his fingers through his hair. "As long as you're getting help, we'll be happy." He turns around and starts to walk away. I look up. That was so..._easy._ Then Sano stops at the curtain, and looks up at me.

"Let me just ask you one question. You haven't thought about...you know. Killing yourself. Have you?"

"No."

_Liar._

I meet his eye. There's a certain...desperation in them I can't place.

_He doesn't believe me._

* * *

><p>Sano walks out of the room. I can hear my friends speaking in low voices outside my door, talking about what to do with me.<p>

I wait on the stairs. Nakatsu will want to talk to me when he comes back. When he does, he has a stoic expression on his face and his aura is a muddy blue.

_He's afraid._

"Nakao says he's worried about you." Nakatsu slumps almost bonelessly back against the door. His eyes stare blankly for a moment before he jumps up and walks briskly across the room.

"What are you cutting yourself with?" He demands, grabbing my shoulders. "A knife? A razor? Answer me, Taiki." He nearly yells, shaking my shoulders. When I still refuse to even look at him, he grabs my arm and pulls back the sleeve. After looking at the fresh cut for a minute, he pulls it back down.

"Knife wounds." He gets up and crosses the room. "That's what you've been doing in the bathroom, haven't you?" He calls over his shoulder as he walks in. I hear him rummaging around for a minute before walking out with the pearl handled knife, wrapped in the bloodstained towel.

"I'll keep this." He shoved the bundle between his mattress and box spring. I don't stop him. I don't need the knife for my plans, and if I need it before that, I can always steal it when Nakatsu's at soccer practice. Nakatsu sits down on his bed and puts his head in his hands.

"Sano said you told him you weren't thinking about suicide. But he thinks you're lying." I still don't answer. I'm not even looking at him, so it scares me when a large hand wraps around my upper arm and forcibly pulls me up.

"Wha-what are you-"

"Shut up, Taiki. I'm going to clean your wound. It's going to get infected."

I start to argue, that I've been cutting myself for years and I haven't gotten majorly infected yet, but I figure it probably won't help my case that much anyway.

When we get into the bathroom, he turns the water on and grabs a washcloth from the cupboard. He turns around, still not meeting my eye.

"Shirt off." He says before running his hand under the water to see if it was warm enough. I start rolling up the sleeve, but he grabs the hem of my sweatshirt.

"I said shirt off. Take it off."

"But-"

"I'm not arguing with you on this." Nakatsu seizes the hem and yanks it up over my body. Normally I'd fight back, but he's already seen, and he could kick my ass if it came to a fight.

He looks at me again, staring at the map carved from flesh and bone of all my sins. I've put on some weight so my rib cage isn't very pronounced, but the slash marks from several years ago outline exactly where the bones are.

He soaks the washcloth in the hot water and squirts soap onto it. He rubs in on the cloth before touching it to my bloody skin. The second it hits my cut, it stings as if someone set a whip to it. I jerk back.

"Hold still, Kayashima!"

"That hurts!"

"And slashing yourself open with a knife doesn't?" He mutters, almost to himself, as he continues to dab at my now-burning cut. I bite down on my lip to keep from crying out. It..._hurts._ It actually hurts. Hurts more than anything I've felt in years.

"How long have you been cutting yourself?" Nakatsu asks me after a minute.

I shrug. "I'm not really sure. Maybe, like, five years or so. Little less." Nakatsu stops what he's doing.

"So, around the time you started middle school?" He asks.

_Right. That's right after I met HIM. HE was the one who showed me._

"I guess." I say. I don't really want to elaborate, but Nakatsu has other ideas.

"Why did you start?"

_That's none of your business._

"A friend showed me how."

Nakatsu stops his business with the washcloth and stares into my eyes. "Not much of a friend."

"No kidding." I say, hoping the conversation was finished.

He didn't say anything until my cut was cleaned, bandaged, and we were back in the dorm room.

Nakatsu calls my name and tosses my phone at me when I turn around.

"Your dad's called you three times. The last time I picked up and told him you were missing."

"You did not!"

"Of course I did." He keeps his eyes averted. "You disappeared out of nowhere in the middle of a blizzard without a coat or cell phone, we were worried."

"I'm almost seventeen. You don't have to watch me every minute."

"Apparently we do."

I exhale. Fine. I'll just call my father and explain to him that I just stepped out to buy toothpaste and my roommate is overreacting, _as long as Nakatsu isn't going to make me say it..._

"And I want you to tell him you're cutting yourself too."

"No."

That would ruin everything. He'd have no choice but to contact my doctor, and they'd haul me back to the hospital, _and they'd lock me up again._

That can't happen. I can't allow it to happen.

Nakatsu sits on his bed and stares into nothing. "He needs to know so you can get help."

"Tried it. They can't fix me."

Nakatsu steals a glance at me out of the corner of his eye. "You don't need to be fixed, Kayashima. You're not broken." He comes over and ruffles my hair. 'You're just sick."

I bat his hand away. He doesn't understand.

_I'm broken where you can't see._

"My father already knows I cut myself."

"You've told him?"

Nakatsu eyes me warily. I stutter and stumble over my words. "Um-well, I-no."

_I will never forget that day._

"So he saw?"

"No."

I can't tell him. I can't _make myself say it._

"Then how did he know?" Nakatsu folds his arms and stares down at me. I stare at my hands in my lap.

_Because he's the one who found me. _

"Kayashima."

_Because he's the one who called for the ambulance. Because he's the one who held my hand while we waited for the EMT's._

"Answer me, Kayashima."

_Because he was the one who sat there in the hospital and sobbed with his head on my bed when he thought I was asleep._

"Kayashima. Kayashima!"

Nakatsu is shaking me. I haven't noticed.

"I tried."

"What?" Nakatsu's eyes are filled with concern.

_He only cried once when he knew I was awake._

"I tried. I really tried." I brace myself and dare to say it while looking into his eyes. "I tried to kill myself."

_When I first woke up, he wouldn't look me in the eye. He clasped my hands, but kept his eyes away from my face._

_"I knew." He said. "I knew what you've been doing to yourself. I ignored it and hoped it would go away."_

Even now...he still won't look me in the eye.

"Kayashima..." Nakatsu sits next to me on the step and runs his fingers through his hair. "I'm so sorry. I never knew."

"It's okay." I hear myself say. "That's actually the reason he sent me here. To Osaka High. So I wouldn't have to be around my old classmates."

"Did they-" Nakatsu stops. He doesn't know what to say to me.

"I got a lot of crap for the ghost thing." I told him simply. I stood up and stretched. "You know, I really don't feel like talking about this."

Nakatsu grabs my sleeve. "You still need to call your father."

"Now? He'll be asleep. It's almost one in the morning."

"Call him. He cares. He probably won't go to bed until you call him."

I knew this was true, but I didn't like having Nakatsu point this out to me. He grabs my arm.

"And you're telling him about the cutting. Or I will. And trust me, I won't sugar-coat it."

_I can't have that._

"Fine." I say. "But you stop picking up the phone when my dad calls." Nakatsu takes a shaky breath.

"Deal." He says.

I take the phone and move to grab my coat. "Hold on-where do you think you're going?"

"To the roof." I say. "It has the best reception in the building."

He takes my coat. "No way. I'm not letting you up to the roof."

"What do you think I'm gonna do?" Stupid question. Nakatsu's shoulder's slump.

"I-I'd just feel better if you didn't go there."

"Okay." I put the coat back. "I'll go down to the common room." Nakatsu looks relieved.

"Thanks, Kayashima." He says. He sighs and sits back down on his bed. "I really hope your dad will able able to hold you accountable for your actions."

I muster a smile before walking out into the hallway and closing the door.

_Don't start to care, Taiki. You're doing this just as much for their sake as yours. They'll be much happier without you. All of them._

* * *

><p><em>Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping.<em>

_Hello,_

_I'm still here._

_All that's left of yesterday._

* * *

><p><strong>So, I changed the title of this story, because I was listening to the completely awesome song 'Living On A Prayer' and for some reason, it reminded me of this. And, since I was too lame to think of a good title in the first place, the first title was just Kayashima's nickname, 'Ghost Boy' translated into Japanese. (Which was weird.) So I was really happy when I thought of an actually decent title! Now I just need to fix the summary...<strong>

**I listen to Evanescence while working on this. It's creepy and beautiful at the same time! I've become obsessed with the song 'Whisper' especially the Latin. (Which is what's on top.) It translates into 'Save us from danger. Save us from evil.' I've also been listening to 'My Immortal' 'Haunted' 'Hello' 'Lies' and 'Imaginary' because I think Kayashima would connect with them.**

**NOTE: I lied. There is no Latin on top. There was, but there isn't anymore. Originally, there was _Servatis a periculum. Servatis a maleficum _up there.**

**Alright, reviews are ALWAYS appreciated! I would promise brownies to everyone who reviews...but I have five brothers and there is no food in my house whatsoever. I can offer my evil stepsister, though. Or my annoying older half-brother who's ditching us for college soon.**

**Random Fact: Polar bears are left-handed.**


	4. Whisper

**I've been meaning to put this in the last three Author's Notes, but by the time I finish a chapter, I am so excited the excitement takes over my mind and I forget. But if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm using to dorm layout from the drama, not the manga. The bunk bed set-up is alright, but the dorm room from the drama just kicks ass. (excuse my language.) I really don't know why Kayashima has shirts on his level though, so I'm moving their weird little beaded curtain up a level. **

**I promised myself I would only put A/N's at the end of each chapter, but oh well. At least I'm not inserting stories about my cats in random places during the story, like a certain manga author we know...I can't really complain though, because I love reading those, and I feel like I know Hisaya Nakajo now or something, unlike every other manga I've ever read where the author is like the Wizard of Oz or something. Operating behind a curtain while us little weirdos do his bidding...**

**Disclaimer: Ah-hem. I've forgotten about this important piece. I own an African gray parrot, A green Amazon parrot (who can't fly), a guinea pig, two dogs, and a cat. My parrots are screeching. I don't own Hana-Kimi. If I did, I'd have my own house and could get these parrots out of my room.**

* * *

><p><em>If I smile and don't believe.<em>

_Soon I know I'll wake from this dream._

_Don't try to fix me,_

_I'm not broken._

_Hello,_

_I am the lie,_

_Living for you so you can hide._

_Don't cry..._

* * *

><p>The hallways are deserted. No one bothers me as I slowly make my way down to the common room, my phone clutched in my fist. The rooms are mostly dark, with a few of the hard partiers still up. It's Friday night, so the bookworms have long since tucked their homework away and crawled underneath their covers, letting their dreams chase away the monsters they're lucky enough to only see during daylight hours.<p>

I like the dark. I don't have to see. Contrary to popular belief, ghosts don't glow. So when I turn off the light, I don't have to see them. Unless I fall asleep and _they invade my nightmares._

There are few ghosts in the common room when I arrive there. Most of the ghosts I'm comfortable staying here at school are the ghosts of students or teachers who died during their time here. It's their right to stay here if they want.

Most of them vacate the room when I come in. My mother even floats out to the hallway and stares out the window, giving me some privacy to make the call.

I sit at a study correl, the padded seat enveloping my body as I sit down. I feel safe in it. _You're never safe._ The cushion turns into a solid block of ice.

I take a deep, calming breath, sucking in icy air and blood. I raise my phone and go through my contacts until I land on my father's number, and shakily press CALL.

_Maybe he won't answer. Maybe he's gone to bed. I can wait down here a little and tell Nakatsu I told him when I go back up..._

But, as luck would have it, he answered right as the phone began to ring a second time.

_"Taiki." _My father's voice is filled with relief. _"I thought you'd never call."_

I bite back the knives that threaten to burst out of my mouth. I take the hand that isn't holding the phone and dig the nails into the back of my neck. My neck is cold.

"I was only gone a couple hours. Nakatsu was overreacting."

_"He seemed very worried over the phone."_

I force myself to laugh. "Nakatsu is a worrywart. I just had to pick up a few things at the store. I'm fine."

_"If you say so."_

Now what? Now there's blood in the air between us and we have hardly begun our weekly phone call. And there's nothing else to talk about.

He must sense my hesitation. _"How are your grades?"_

"Fine." I say noncommittally. I think for a second, the I remember. "How's Miyako?"

_"She's alright. Worried about you, as always."_

"Tell her I'm fine. Tell her there's nothing to worry about."

My father sighs and I bite down on my lip to keep the angry words from pouring out like boiling water.

_"Of course there is, Taiki. You know that."_

_No, I don't, because you don't tell me anything._

"I'm not normal, Dad."

_"There's no such thing as-"_

"I'm never going to be normal. You can't medicate me into submission."

_"I never tried to."_

"Yeah, you are now. I have the pill bottles in my bathroom to prove it."

_"I have you on anti-depressants because you tried to kill yourself." _He takes in one long, shaky breath, like he's trying not to cry. _"The other stuff is because your aunt Chihara is a controlling psycho."_

I laugh. It just slips out of me. I don't mean to laugh, but it happens.

"Funny, how they don't seem to stop what I see."

_"They're anti-hallucinogens."_

"Right. I don't hallucinate."

_"I know that, Taiki."_

"No you don't. You think I'm crazy."

He doesn't answer for a long time. I can hear his breathing over the phone-heavy, like he's holding it all in. I wish I could see his aura. I hate talking over the phone. Finally, he finds words.

_"I know the things you see are as real to you as anything else is."_

Why am I still here? Why am I still talking to this man? _There's no point in this conversation._

_"Taiki?" _My blood is boiling. _"You're still taking your meds, right?"_

I close my eyes and crack my neck. _Patience._ "Yes, Dad. Every day." I lie.

He breathes a sigh of almost-relief, with a tinge of sorrow. _"I'm worried about you, Taiki."_

"I'm fine."

_"People who are fine don't disappear for hours at a time without their cell phone or coat. In the middle of a blizzard, no less."_

"I don't see what the big deal is. I'm almost seventeen. I can't walk to a store?"

_"Without telling anyone you're leaving? What if you were kidnapped, or got hit by a car?"_

"You worry too much. None of that happened."

He sighs again. I'm really sick of this call. If he's so damn disappointed in me, he should have just let me die and knocked Miyako up.

_"Your aunt wants you to go back to the mental hospital."_

"Insurance won't cover another hospital stay. They're expensive." I point out.

_"If I think you need it, I'll find a way to pay for it."_

My heart jumps into my throat. "Do you think I need it?"

_"Honestly? No. I'm a little concerned about you still seeing things-" _I bite my tongue until I taste blood. _"-but you're eating and you have friends, and you've told me you haven't cut yourself since you got there."_

Almost to taunt me, my cut begins to burn. My other arm itches. My skin hates to be closed up. It needs to open every once in a while, let the nightmare out for a run.

_"There's still none of that, right?"_

_If he knows, he'll have me strapped down and they'll never let me free._

"Of course not. I told you I'd stop."

Sorry, Nakatsu.

_"Good." _A pause. _"I still don't think you should be out alone at night."_

"Dad, it's late. I'm tired." I say, playing with my sweatshirt string.

_"But-"_

"I have a lot to do tomorrow, so I have to get up early."

He doesn't answer for a second. _"Alright. I love you, Taiki."_

"Love you too." I mumble, then press down on the end button so hard I'm surprised my phone doesn't snap in half.

* * *

><p>Nakatsu seems content with what I told him about the phone call, all of which was as spun as cotton candy. He pats my head like a dog and hops onto his bed and is asleep in seconds.<p>

I take my time ascending the stairs. I don't want to go to sleep and face the monsters that creep out of the dark corners to rip out the wiring in my brain. I want to be like Nakatsu, jump into a warm, snug bed and sleep undisturbed for hours, awaking fully charged. But I'm lucky to get two or three hours of sleep at night, with all the screaming in my head.

When I crawl into bed, it's like I'm laying on a block of ice. The blanket rolls up, a thick sheet of snow trying to crush me.

The nightmares crawl through my brain, like spiders.

During the night, I don't always dream of dead people. It's really the living you have to watch your back around.

Tonight, I dream of HIM.

The images flash through my head.

_Flash. _Two boys during the first snowfall, trying to make a snowman but laughing when the snow doesn't stick.

_Flash. _Two boys work together on a science project, creating a plane out of foam with a knife.

_Flash_. One of the boys cutting the other's wrist open, telling the other it'll help with the screams.

_Flash_. The boys walking together at lunch, one trying to ignore the whispers that are curling into his head, the other laughing.

I close my eyes and my eyelids stick together for a brief moment, and I see his face.

_No._

I open my eyes.

I haven't seen him since that day.

I turn over on my side and try not to think about his face.

Ryoto.

Ryoto...was my best friend for three years.

Or at least, I thought he was.

* * *

><p><em>The second time they locked me up,<em> it was the summer before I was set to start junior high, my father taken me out to dinner and drank three glasses of wine. During the ride home, we approached a yellow light that Dad sped up to make. It turned red before we had entered the intersection; a blue pickup truck on my side didn't bother to look and T-boned us.

car/shattered glass/airbag/dark

My entire left leg was smashed. They stapled it together and sewed me up with black thread when I wasn't looking.

My father escaped with a few bruises, both to his forehead when he smacked it on the steering wheel and to his ego.

My aunt once again sobbed to the doctors about how I was neglected and saw ghosts, my father tried to fight it, but seeing how he had just nearly killed me, no one really cared about what his thoughts on his own kid were.

I didn't go back to the psych ward. I spent the summer at a small clinic out in the country. I had lots of therapy, both physical and mental, but there was a lot of group therapy. I'd never really meshed with the kids at school, and I'd hardly ever spoken to someone else my age. So I spent a lot of time sitting with my arms folded.

My father didn't really mind after a couple days. It gave him and Miyako time to make wedding plans.

After I got out, it was time to go back to school. I started at a new school, the junior high.

Most of my old classmates from grammar school had heard I'd gotten myself locked up, for the second time, and quickly spread the news that I was such a freak the doctors had to strap me to a table before they would try to talk to me.

Almost everyone avoided me. Some were actually afraid of me, and I didn't exactly blame them. But most just ignored me for fun.

The exception was Ryoto. He was from another grammar school near to mine. That first day at lunch, I sat alone in a corner, eating my low-fat yogurt. He came over with a tray with two servings of pizza and offered me one. We became friends instantly.

We never went over to his house. He made excuses; his mom didn't want her house messed up, his dad drank. I really didn't question it. We'd spend all our freetime together during the schoolday, then walk to my house after school let out. We'd eat popcorn or fresh cookies Miyako had baked that morning while we did our homework and talked.

He listened to what I said about my aunt and ghosts and my mother. He pretended to emphasize and told me he would always be there for me.

We went bowling a lot during the weekends. We never hung out with the other kids at our school. He played basketball, so he had other friends. I liked to play tennis but the tennis team wouldn't let me join.

Those times were the happiest of my life, _but they were also the darkest._

After a couple of months, I began to notice that the other kids knew more about what I saw than before. The boys jumped me and beat me up on the days Ryoto didn't come home with me.

When I told Ryoto how badly the screaming hurt running through my veins as we talked over a science project, he took the knife we were using and slashed my palm. He told me I'd feel better.

I didn't even suspect Ryoto when the next day, kids _were already calling me a cutter._

For almost three years, I had trusted him. I brought everything I felt to him, confident he would have my back and stand up for me.

_I believed that until that day._

It's late. If I don't fall asleep soon, the sun will rise and I'll be running on yesterday's fuel.

I turn over onto my stomach and ask my mother to rub my back.

* * *

><p>The next day, I get up and shower before Nakatsu wakes up. Not that that's saying a lot. I'm an early riser by all definitions.<p>

I expect him to sleep straight through until noon, but he surprises me by already being up and dressed when I get out of the shower.

"Hey! There you are. Come on, we're gonna go buy pie." I stop and stare at him as he grins victoriously.

"We're having pie for breakfast?" I ask, adjusting the sleeves on my black sweater. He takes hold of my wrist and pulls.

"Don't say it like it's going to kill you! Come on, it's pie! You should always be happy to eat pie!"

I roll my eyes and let Nakatsu drag me downstairs where the rest of our friends are waiting. Noe and Sekime are gossiping quietly in the corner, Mizuki is radiating sparkles. Sano is gruffly standing off to the side, keeping a protective eye on his roommate. Even Nakao decided to grace us with his presence this particular morning.

Everyone acts normal on the short walk to the bakery. Noe and Sekime gossiping like old women. Mizuki and Sano flirting, Nakatsu glomping on Mizuki, and Nakao making sarcastic comments every five seconds. And they all but ignore my existence. Which is normal but

_Did what happened last night even matter to them?_

Once we have ordered and taken our seats, I dig into my slice of cherry, trying to eat the thing as fast as I can and escape to the bathroom until they decide to leave. Nakao; who copied my idea of getting a fruity pie with blueberry; is sitting far too close on one side of me at the rounded table, on the other side of me is Nakatsu. (Pecan) His bulk pushes me into Nakao uncomfortably.

Mizuki tears into her pie (French silk) with gusto. Sano looks disgusted with her eating habits and glumly picks at his own slice of pumpkin. Noe has some oreo thing, and Sekime is attacking his coconut cream. They all look so...normal. Unconcerned. _Does what I'm doing affect them at all? Do they even care?_

Finally, Sano puts down his fork at gives a pointed look at Nakao. His eyes flick to me, ever so briefly, before staring Nakao down. Nakao clears his throat and sits up straighter.

"Guys? I think Kayashima has something to tell you."

Everyone's eyes turn to me. They all stare me down while I squirm uncomfortably.

Sano must have told Mizuki. And Mizuki would have definitely blabbed to Noe and Sekime. What the hell are they doing?

_...Can they really not know?_

I throw my napkin down on my plate and return their stare. "No. I really don't."

"'Shima, we know. Nakatsu told us." Noe pipes up. I have an almost overwhelming urge to punch him. Sekime follows after his best friend.

"We want to hear it from you. And...we want you to admit to yourself that you need help."

Kyogo's gaze is steady. Noe fidgets slightly, but continues to watch me. I can feel the gaze of the rest of my friends, hot on my neck.

_You never know what a person's capable of until they're pushed to the edge. _

I get up, my chair scraping loudly across the floor, like scraping bones. I turn my back on my notfriends and start to leave, but Nakatsu grabs hold of my arm and pulls me back.

"Sit down, Kayashima. We're not finished with you." The laughable Kansai accent in his voice betrays the meaning of the words.

"Well, I'm finished with you." I pull my arm away and walk towards the door. I head Mizuki stand up. I don't look around when she yells at me.

"You can't hide forever, Kayashima. You need help. And since we're your friends we're gonna make sure you get it!"

I stand still at the doorway, taking her in. Then I shove the door open and walk out into the cold sunshine, leaving my friends behind.

* * *

><p><em>I'm frightened by what I see,<em>

_But somehow, I know_

_That there's so much more to come._

_Immobilized by my fear._

_And soon to be,_

_Blinded by tears._

_I can stop the pain,_

_If I will it all away._

_If I will it all away._

* * *

><p><strong>This has sat in my Fanfiction account, almost completed, for about two days. I've been lazy. And writing a random little KayashimaNakao oneshot with my brother that we'll probably post tomorrow. (Not serious, but not really a crackfic...just something we thought of and almost killed ourselves laughing over.)**

**Reviews are much appreciated! (I actually got two last chapter...amazing!)**

**Random Fact: Before Cookie Monster started eating cookies, his name was Sid. (The Sloth!)**


	5. Numb

_Can't you see that you're smothering me?_

_Holding too tightly,_

_Afraid to lose control._

_Cause everything that you thought I would be,_

_Is falling apart,_

_Right in front of you._

* * *

><p><em>You never know what a person is capable of until they're pushed to the edge.<em>

* * *

><p>I run. As soon as I made it out of the bakery, Nakao followed me out. He yelled at me, tried to get me to turn around-I ignored him. He ran and grabbed me, I pushed him away and took off. Thank God it was Nakao. Sekime, Sano, Nakatsu, or Mizuki would have had no trouble catching up with me, and Noe thinks I'm a creepy bastard and wouldn't be trying to save my life anyway.<p>

So now I run. I don't know where I'm going or how long I run for before I realize the buildings are unfamiliar and I'm completely lost.

_I'm lost._

My cell phone vibrates like crazy. I feel an urge to pitch it into the river. Instead I turn it to SILENT.

I have absolutely no idea where I am. The people pass by me, completely oblivious to me. They don't notice me. They don't even care.

My legs make their way to a convenience store. My hands pick up a bag of black disposable razors, and a bottle of vinegar. On an impulse, I pick up a roll of gauze and surgical tape.

I don't dare use the credit card my father has given me. I hand over the last of the bills from the last time I withdrew cash at the bank.

I find myself in the small bathroom, door locked, my face staring back out at me from the grimy mirror.

I shed my sweater. The bandages Nakatsu so carefully wound around my arm the night before falls to the floor. The razors sneak their way out of the bag and I cut. Ladders climb up my arms, red runes between long snakes of blood. I carve a story from my flesh of my lies.

When I'm done and have dropped the entire pack of razors in the garbage (both the shiny new ones and the bloody, dull ones) and covered it, the bottle of vinegar opens and pours itself onto my bloody arm.

* * *

><p><em>I don't feel much anymore<em>, yet I feel too much. I can't make sense of it. What goes on inside my head hurts far more than my skin opening up and letting the blood seep out.

When I first started cutting myself, it worked. It hurt like hell, but it let some of the pain in my head out. Watching my blood seep put and fall to the floor let me feel like I was getting rid of the demons inside my head.

The kids at school made the demons worse. They yelled words at me-_cutter/emo/poser/fake_-and sparked the fire that still burns coldly in my skull. Black flames have licked their way up my spine, flaming white sheets wrapped around my brain.

I cut for a long time, and it was an effective way of letting the demons out. It was salt to the wound basically. Before I knew what was happening, _poison had seeped into the wounds and was killing me._

I don't feel the cuts anymore.

That scares me.

But I _can't stop myself doing it._

* * *

><p>When Nakatsu put soap on my cut the night before, it stung like I could never imagine. For a second, it felt like the first time I cut. For the first time in years<p>

_I felt it._

I craved that pain. I needed more of it. I watched the vinegar spill out of the bottle and onto the fresh cuts.

I wasn't disappointed.

The fire is my heart zeroed in on my arm. It burnt away the frozen cobwebs and icicles that hung from my bones. I fell to my knees, my other hand around my mouth to prevent the scream from escaping my mouth.

I can no hold myself up. I fall onto my side, clutching my arm. Every moment was pure agony, yet I couldn't help but want the moment to last forever. While I lay on the floor, I wasn't thinking about ghosts and mental hospitals and my father.

_Just me._

I lay there for a while. I had no sense of time while I was burning. Just the fire. Not the freezing hard tile beneath me, not the fact that Nakatsu was totally kicking my ass when I got home. Just me, and the flames battling through my icy walls to get to my heart.

I knew, back in the recesses of my brain, that I needed to get up off of the floor. I knew that Nakatsu, at least, would be looking for me and having a complete freak-out. I didn't want to deal with it. I just wanted to lay here, burning, forever.

Finally, I forced myself to get to my feet. I turned the tap and rinsed my arm with the ice water that came out of the HOT faucet. I looked mournfully at the now-empty bottle of vinegar. I would go back out and buy a new bottle, but Nakatsu will probably search me if I go home.

I carefully wrap my arm up once again, making sure I do it the same way as Nakatsu did the night before. When I'm done, I meticulously clean the bathroom of any speck of blood. I deposit the empty bottle and the rest of the gauze and tape into the trash.

When I walk outside, the sun is high above me. Past noon. I check my phone. My heart stops.

* * *

><p>27 missed calls.<p>

10 messages.

They're going to kill me.

_Shit._

First time, Nakatsu.

"Kayashima, get your ass back here. Now."

Nakatsu again.

"I'm not kidding Kayashima. You're in deep shit if you don't come back to the dorm right now."

3-5 is still Nakatsu. He hangs up without leaving a message.

6 is Mizuki. She doesn't leave a message.

7 is Nakao. He does.

"'Shima? Please answer. I'm really freaking out here. You're scaring me."

8-10 Nakatsu again. On ten he leaves a message.

"I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry. I'm scared for you. Don't do anything stupid. Please."

11-15 is a mix of Noe and Sekime. Neither of leave messages.

16 is Nakatsu again.

"Where the hell are you?"

17 is Sano.

"Nakatsu is having one of his patented freak-outs. Just thought you should know."

18 is Mizuki again.

"Hey, Kayashima? We're concerned. I mean, everyone's been freaking out. Nakatsu went out looking for you, but he couldn't find you anywhere. Just...please be safe."

19 is Sekime.

"Nakatsu is going crazy. Somebody made a comment about you at lunch and he clobbered the guy in the face."

Nakatsu doesn't leave a message on 20-25. He does on 26.

"You're scaring me. Really. What the hell are you doing to yourself?"

Nakatsu again on the last one.

"Kayashima, I swear to God, if you don't call me or text me or anything in the next hour, I am calling the police."

_Shit. _I check the call time. 1:19 PM. The time on my phone reads 2:23 PM.

_Oh, I am so very screwed._

I quickly press down on Nakatsu's contact, praying to God he hasn't called yet.

_If he calls the police, I'll be locked up again. And they won't ever let me out._

I grip the metal pole that stands in my way of the river. The pole is frozen; my hand is sticking. In contrast with my body temperature, it feels like it's emitting heat.

Nakatsu picks up before the phone rings even once.

"Kayashima, thank God! You're damn lucky. I was literally punching in 911 when you called. Where the fuck are you?"

I take a deep breath. Nakatsu's words are a jumbled mess. I don't even have to see his aura to know he's freaking out.

"Kayashima?" I want to end this call already. I just want to press END and

_never go home._

"Shit. Are you okay? Where are you? Kayashima?"

"I'm here."

My words hang in midair. They crystallize and turn to ice as the float through the air. Nakatsu breathes, and speaks quietly.

"Where's here?"

_I don't know._

I've fallen off the edge of the map. I'm lost. I don't know where I am. I'm lost. I'm here.

_I don't know where I am._

"I'm not sure. Just chill, okay? I'll be home as soon as I can."

"What's going on, Kayashima? Where have you been?"

"Nowhere. Just wandering around. I'm fine."

"You're sure."

"Of course I'm sure, Nakatsu. I'm coming home right now."

"You're totally fine. You haven't been doing anything to yourself."

Does he have the sixth sense or something? "No, Nakatsu. I just needed some time to myself. I'm sorry I worried you."

I hear Nakatsu exhale loudly. Relief.

"Okay. Get home quick. We're all worried."

I hang up before I can say anything else, then pitch my phone into the river with a guttural scream.

* * *

><p>I flag down a cab and have him take me to the nearest bank. Then I wave the cash in front of his face and tell him I need to get to Osaka High. He rolls his eyes at me, but drives. It takes almost an hour.<p>

When I return to my dorm room, the smell of fresh pizza wafts up and invades my nostrils. I turn the handle and find every one of my friends gathered around on the floor. They all stop what they're doing and turn to stare at me as I enter.

"Kayashima!" "We've been so worried!" "Where have you _been?"_

I don't pay attention to what they say. I hear without processing. I step into the room and close the door behind me.

"I needed some time to myself. I was upset this morning." I hear myself say. "Sorry for worrying everyone."

"No, it's fine. Just...don't do it again, okay?' Mizuki gets up and pulls me over to the circle and sits me down. She walks over to her spot in between Sano and Nakao and sits.

"So...we eating pizza?"

"We need to talk to you." Sano sips nonchalantly from his tea. Nakatsu, sitting besides me, turns his body slightly, but still keeps his eyes averted.

"We told Umeda."

I get up. I have to leave. It's over. They'll lock me up.

_It's over._

Nakao grabs my arm and pulls me back. I let out a yelp of surprise. Nakao is small, but he's stronger than I thought.

"Will you listen to us? We're trying to help you. Sit the fuck down and _listen._" Nakao huffs. He takes his hands off of me and crosses them in front, but he never stops glaring black holes into me.

I sit. My ex-friends look surprised. No one speaks for a minute, until I decide to.

"So, is there a reason we're still here, or can I go now? Because I would like to get started on my homework at some point this weekend..."

"We're here to talk about you, Kayashima." Noe says. "You could be a little more grateful."

"Grateful?" Smoke comes out of my brain and wraps around my throat. "Did you just tell me I should be 'grateful' that you're going to get me locked up again?"

"Locked up? Kayashima, we just want to get you hel-"

"No, you're not!" I yell at Mizuki, who's trying not to cry as I scream. I'm standing up, I don't know how I got here, but the words tumble out of my mouth "You don't want me here, you're just trying to get me locked up again so you don't have to deal with me!"

Nakatsu is behind me. He grabs me by my shoulders and forces me into a kneeling position. Tears are running down my face. I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

_I just broke Rule #1._

Nakatsu kneels down beside me and wipes a stray tear from my face. Everyone stares at me, shocked expressions all around.

_Never show people how you feel._

I use my sleeve to wipe the cold liquid from my face. My expressionless mask slips over once more.

_You don't know how they'll use it against you._

"Fine. So you told Umeda. What other reason would you have for doing that, besides getting me locked up again?"

"Kayashima, we're not trying to lock you up. Why do you keep saying that?"

"The hospital." I say. I take a deep breath to ensure I'm not going to have a sudden breakdown again. "I'm not going back. Ever. You can't force me."

"We weren't trying to get you sent to the hospital." Sano huffs.

"You've been to the hospital before?" Noe asks, almost simultaneously with Sano.

I examine their auras to try and figure out how much danger I'm in. The aura's around me are blue-green in color. Concern. That can be dangerous.

_...Would it be more dangerous to keep my mouth shut?_

"People are freaked out by the ghost thing." I say, glaring lasers at Noe. He doesn't turn away. "I have an aunt who thinks it's an illness. She's sent me there three times already." They're still staring. "It sucks." I add flatly.

"Well, this doesn't have to do with seeing ghosts!" Mizuki chirps. _She doesn't get it._ "I'm sure if we can explain to Umeda, he won't send you to another doctor or anything!"

I mentally roll my eyes. Does she know anything about how things work? Umeda will call my father. He has to, it's a school rule. And he'll have me locked up again. They'll lock me up and strap me to a table, and they'll paint the windows over so I never know when it's day or night, and they'll keep me there until I forget my own name, because after that, _nothing will matter._

Sano stares at nitwit roommate. _Maybe even he sees what a stupid cow she is._ He clears his throat and turns his eyes to me.

"Umeda wants to talk to you. We told him you'd be there at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning." I glare and him, and even he shifts uncomfortably. I glare daggers.

"I'm not going."

"Of course you are, Kayashima." Nakatsu's voice is harsh. "What are we supposed to do, just wait around for you to try and kill yourself again?"

All breathing in the room stopped. Eyes flickered towards my face. I look down.

"...What?"

_Shut up. You have no right to ask. You have no. Fucking. Right. To know._

"Well?" Nakatsu nudges my shoulder. "Tell them, Kayashima. You're so eager to put it in your skin."

_...Would it be wrong to rip Nakatsu's chest open?_

"Nakatsu, that wasn't necessary." Sano snaps. Even Mizuki has the brains to look shocked at what he said. "That's personal."

"No." The demon inside me says. "If you want to know so badly, I'll tell you."

My notfriends stare at me as I breathe in and out, bracing myself for the truth.

"A few weeks before I was scheduled to graduate from junior high, a couple of guys, one of whom I considered my best friend, jumped me and beat the crap out of me. Later, my dad found me hanging in my closet."

Two sentences. That's all it took to describe the darkest day in my life. Two sentences. Fifteen seconds.

_A lifetime._

"'Shima...I'm so sorry. We...we didn't know." To his credit, Noe actually did look upset.

"Yeah...if we had known, we would never have said that kind of stuff about you." Sekime confesses. I could have said I was curious about what kind of 'stuff' had been said, but that would have been a lie.

"But...we're not like that, Kayashima." Mizuki nearly chirps. "We want you to be happy. You're our friend."

I could have laughed in her face. No one just wants 'friendship.' Everyone wants something else from you. And once they've used you up and gotten what they've wanted, they toss you onto the floor in case someone wants something else out of what's left. And if there's nothing left, _who cares?_

Nothing matters. _Nothing._

"Kayashima." Nakatsu's eyes seem to roll towards mine, but I must have imagined it.

"Please do this. Please go to Umeda for help."

I close my eyes. I can't make sense of this. Why on earth are they pushing this so much? There's absolutely nothing the can gain from this.

_Maybe they are just concerned for you._

Of course not. No one ever cares about anyone else.

But Nakatsu has always looked out for me. And Nakao has been a good friend, once you get past his sharp shell. Sano sticks up for me, and Mizuki can be sweet. Noe and Sekime are all right most of the time.

_...Maybe life isn't so bad._

I look up at my friend's hopeful faces. They want me to heal. They want to help me.

_No, they don't. They don't care about you at all._

I shake my head to get the voice out of my head. I don't want to hear it. I want a few seconds where I don't have to hear. A few seconds where I can see past this icy, gaping black hole I've been held prisoner in my entire life. I want to see the light. I want the ice to melt.

"Okay." The words tumble past my lips, into the ears of my friends, whose grim faces turn bright. "I'll go. I promise."

"Really? That's so great, Kayashima!" Mizuki jumps up and flies over to me, wrapping her arms around my neck. I reel back, surprised at the sudden contact.

"You'll have to admit to yourself what you've been doing." She says as she steps back, her hands resting on my shoulders. "You'll have to face it."

"I know." I say. "I'm depressed. I cut. I've tried to kill myself. And I don't want that for myself anymore."

_Stop deluding yourself. _The demon inside myself says as my friends laugh and munch happily. _You'll never make it. You'll never be happy until you end it._

* * *

><p><em>I've become so numb,<em>

_I can't feel you there._

_I've become so tired,_

_So much more aware._

_I'm becoming this._

_All I want to do,_

_Is be more like me,_

_And be less like you._

* * *

><p><strong>Forgive the sappy scene at the end here. This would be my dream confrontation with my brother, him admitting what he's done and that he wants to get better. But yeah.<strong>

**The inspiration for this chapter was Linkin Park. I'd put the specific songs in, but I want to get this chapter posted today and my mother is having a spaz attack because I'm on the computer.**

**Random Fact: Three Musketeers bar was originally three different bars: chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla.**


	6. If I Die Young

_A penny for my thoughts, I'll sell them for a dollar._

_They're worth so much more after I'm a goner._

_And maybe then you'll hear the words I've been singing._

_Funny, when you're dead, how people start listening._

* * *

><p>The next day was Sunday. True to my word, I woke up and was showered and dressed by 7:45. I grabbed my coat and slipped my arms through it before stopping at the door and stealing a glance back at Nakatsu.<p>

I know he's awake. His aura wouldn't glow this brightly if he was asleep. He woke up early to make sure I actually went.

But he said nothing when I called out his name.

The walk to the doctor is short, but it seems to take a lifetime.

This meeting was going to end me. Umeda meant well, but once he got wind of the ghosts inside my head, _it was all over._

But I promised my friends I would go.

_It will be the end of you._

They'll lock me up. I know how these things go. The minute he finds out I've been cutting myself, it was done. That's danger. You can be depressed and think about dying and basically anything you want, but if you actually physically harm yourself, it's a one way ticket to the padded cell.

I look at my left sleeve, the red, irritated skin and the dark cuts underneath the layers of bandages and clothing.

Yep. I was totally done.

I was actually somewhat impressed with myself. A month ago, maybe even a week ago, I'd run. Get as far away from this place as possible. Run away from the pain instead of dealing with it head-on.

I ran away once. I was planning on taking a boat to Russia. I grabbed a handful of cash and a couple pieces of Miyako's expensive jewelry (I left a note and apologized for stealing, not for leaving.) and slipped out the back door while my father and stepmother watched a movie. I spent four days sleeping on park benches and eating barely anything before the police finally shoved me in their car and hauled my ass home.

I haven't tried that yet. Granted, I haven't been outside since they told me I was going to this thing. Haven't looked out and seen nothing but the stretch of land. Haven't been tempted.

I brace myself against the heavy door, trying to breathe. I had several options. I could not open this door and go right back up to my room and go back to sleep. Although Nakatsu would probably drag me out of bed if I resisted. I could open the door and run, as fast as I can, nowhere in particular, just away from here.

Or I could walk to the infirmary and get fitted for my straitjacket. That too.

I sigh and push the door open.

* * *

><p><em>The last time they locked me up, it wasn't because of my ghosts or some freak accident that caused me to go under the doctor's microscope anyway. <em>It was because I tried to kill myself.

I hadn't been successful in hanging myself, but the rope had done a good job of messing my throat up. I really couldn't talk. Therapy was pointless, but they made me sit through it anyway.

I was back at the hospital, the first one I went to, after I fell down the stairs. It was the same. I wanted to go back to the clinic because we were allowed outside, but instead I was locked inside during the beautiful summer months. It was my longest hospital stay.

I played a whole new game with the docs. Instead of asking me the ghost questions, they asked about how I felt. How I viewed myself. Why I would want to hurt myself.

The truthful answers-_I feel like shit/I think I'm worthless and no one gives a damn about me/Yes, I want to cut myself, why do you care? It's none of you're damn business what I do with my own body-_didn't fly. The doctors don't want to hear that I'm still sick.

They wanted me to get better. The docs couldn't stand me being sick. Their $$$ was ticking away. All they wanted to hear was that I was in recovery, I was healing, blah blah blah.

If I wasn't getting better any time soon, I should just hurry up and die and quit wasting their time.

Seeing their auras made everything worse. If I hadn't been able to see their auras, I could delude myself into thinking that they did care.

But they didn't. I was just another patient to them. A product they put together on the assembly line. All the patients, lined up on a conveyer belt. Inject them with Drug A and Drug B, slap on the therapy bandaid, and if they don't pass inspection, who cares? _There was a cemetery right up the road._

It drove me insane. They stopped me from dying, but then the started digging my grave. They_ buried me alive._

* * *

><p>Finally, I'm across the frozen quad and walking into Dr. Umeda's office.<p>

Umeda has his feet up on the table and is reading a newspaper when I come in. He looks up from the paper and quickly puts it away.

"Kayashima. Come in."

I walk inside and shed my coat. The heat of Dr. Umeda's infirmary hits me and freezes when it gets to my face.

He gets up and walks over to the sink to wash his hands. I can see jars of medical supplies surrounding the basin. Glass jars of cotton balls, tongue depressors, pregnancy tests.

Pregnancy tests?

Well...I guess it makes some sense. He is a high school doctor. _But it's an all-boys school..._

Wait. Ashiya is a girl. She rooms with a boy who's absolutely in love with her. Does he have them for her? But why would he have them out on display? He should at least hide them in a drawer. Not be so obvious.

...does this mean Sano and Ashiya are doing it?

Well, a lot of St. Blossom girls visit Osaka to see their boyfriends...I guess they could technically go to Umeda if they were too embarrassed with their own nurse...

I'm confused.

Umeda sees me staring. And I have to know for sure.

"You know Ashiya is a girl."

It wasn't really a question. Just a statement. Honestly, I don't know why I hadn't figured that before. He's the doctor.

Umeda looked embarrassed. "Well, um...you know about that?" He finally gets out.

I nod. "Girls have different auras than boys. And it's not like she does a real good job of hiding it."

A trace of laughter appears on Umeda's face. "True. And I haven't said anything because I believe that Ashiya is better off staying here than being expelled." He leans back against the counter and surveys me. Suddenly, I remember that the doctor is gay and I feel a little uncomfortable under his eye. "And I want you to know I'm going to give you the same treatment. I'm going to listen to you and use my own judgment to decide whether you're better off staying here, going home, or admitted to a psych hospital. Okay?"

I could possibly get out of this without getting locked up again? I could stay here. I could recover.

_You only need to avoid it a few more days. _The voice in my head whispers. _Then you can end it._

But...I don't want to end it. I want to be like my friends. Happy. I don't want to let go and fall into the bottomless pit.

_Give it up._

I nod. I don't smile. I don't express my excitement. Just acknowledge I heard him.

Umeda walks over to me. My stomach drops.

"And I'm really sorry, but I'm going to have to see the damage you've done to yourself."

_Run. Get away from here. They have the cell waiting for you. Stay and they'll lock you up forever._

"No." I'm vaguely aware of my voice speaking. Umeda looks impatient.

"We have two options here, Kayashima. Ripping your shirt off is not one of them, I'd get fired for that, but it's tempting. You can show me willingly. Or I can drive you straight to the hospital. Your choice."

Umeda crosses his arms and looks expectantly at me. I have no choice.

Slowly, I lift the sweatshirt up over my head. My T-shirt follows. Umeda watches my every move, but I don't feel violated, strangely. He doesn't look at my chest, or my waist. He sees the scars that bend around my body, sees the ghosts that come at me with knives, trying to find their way inside me.

He sees the nightmare.

Finally, he nods.

"Take off the bandages."

Terror seizes my heart. I haven't seen my arm since I poured the vinegar all over it. I didn't even really look at it as I wrapped it. Just tried to cover it. Hide it.

...will he be able to tell what I did?

Slowly, I unwind the mile of gauze. I run out far too quick.

As the last of the bandages falls to the floor, I realize what a mistake I made in coming here.

The long cut I had made with the knife was clearly infected, despite Nakatsu's careful cleansing. The smaller razor marks I have inscribed into my skin looked sick. And the small amount of skin that was unmarked was a bright, unhealthy red.

I'm amazed. I didn't even feel it.

Umeda curses under his breath and pulls me over to the sink and turns the water on full blast. We mumble a bit-_I'mfine/youarenot/I'llbefine/you'llhurtyourselfagain/leavemealone-_and Umeda dabs some various liquids onto my cuts and wraps it again. I ignore the stinging sensation.

_It's a lie. It didn't help anything._

When I'm together in one piece again, he pushes me-literally-down into a chair and walks over to his minifridge. When he comes back, he has an orange soda for me and a water for himself. He shoves the can in front of my face and plops down in the chair across from me.

"You got five minutes to explain to me why I'm not in my car right now, driving you to the hospital."

"You're not a therapist."

It was another statement. An accusation. Umeda raised his eyebrow at me.

"Our school doesn't have an official counselor. So people like you get handed off to me."

_People like you._

I exhale and rest my elbows on the table. Confession time. I'll be in my straitjacket soon anyway.

"I've already been to the hospital three times."

"I'm well aware. I've seen your medical records."

_Of course he has. He's probably read every bad word every doctor has ever said to me._

"That's all confidential, you know."

"What?"

"Your record is confidential. It's between you and me. And your parents."

I sigh.

"The hospital hasn't helped me at all."

"Because you don't want to be helped." Umeda sipped his water, like we were discussing the weather. "You aren't going to get better until you admit you need help and want to get better."

"I...I don't want to feel this way." I confess. "But it's like a hole. I can't get out of it. I'm too tired."

Umeda leans forward. "Let's keep talking about this hole. Why can't you get out?"

I'm surprised. No doctor has asked me to keep talking about how I feel...they just concentrate on my 'positive' thoughts.

"It's cold."

"That's it?"

"N-no." I stammer. I'm embarrassed. I've never had to talk about this before. "Well, it is cold...there's ice. And I feel like I'm being pulled down deeper by something."

Umeda nods, like he could possibly understand.

"And is that why you cut yourself? Trying to get rid of whatever is pulling you down?"

"Yes." I say, and almost clamp my hand over my mouth in shock. Before I said that, I didn't even realize it was the truth.

"Are there any other reasons you cut yourself?"

"It's a distraction."

"Distraction? From what?"

_From what?_

I reach up and place my hands over the invisible halo of ice around my head.

"The other voices up here."

"You mean ghosts?"

"I don't like calling them that." I let my hands fall to my side. "Doctors don't really take kind to ghosts. They don't understand."

"I don't think I really deserve to be lumped in with all the other doctors in the world. Most school doctors would have expelled a female who enrolled herself in an all-boys boarding school.' Umeda laughs. "Most school doctors would have handed you over to doctors who specialize in psychotherapy by this point."

I look up. "You don't think I'm crazy for seeing ghosts?"

Umeda takes a sip of water.

"Taiki, when you first came to this school, they told me you had recently attempted suicide. They told me you were emotionally damaged. I kept an eye on you. It was a lot easier when Ashiya came and became friends with you. I know all about how you see dead people and auras." He smiles at me. "I don't think you're crazy. I think you have a gift."

"Curse."

"It might seem like that." He leans back in his chair. "But you haven't been given the opportunity to use it properly."

* * *

><p>We spend time talking about my cutting. About seeing ghosts. About everything.<p>

I'm really just amazed. I've always thought Umeda was just an asshole. I mean, he obviously took his job seriously from the way he dealt with injuries, but sitting here with him now...I can tell he truly cares for the students here.

I really don't know how much time passes when Umeda bursts my bubble.

"Your friends are extremely concerned about you, you know."

I sigh and chew absentmindedly at a fingernail.

"Who came in?"

"Nakao and Noe came in together yesterday morning, but that monkey of a roommate of yours burst in halfway through." Umeda rolls his eyes. I stifle a laugh. That's so Nakatsu.

"What did they say?"

Umeda shifted his position, not looking me straight in the eye. "Nakao nearly started crying. He said you had come home Friday night half-frozen and freaked out when he tried to help you get out of your wet clothes."

"He's gay. Is it wrong to not want him undressing me?" My cheeks immediately redden, remembering the doctor's own sexual orientation, and that he had seen my half-undressed body earlier. Umeda, however, looked totally unaffected by what I said.

"Well, he claimed that once he got your sweater off, he could see that you self-harm, and that you were still doing it."

"Mmm." I mumble. Umeda continues on.

"Noe said they tried to confront you about-"

"Wait. Noe came in?"

The doctor looks at me like I'm crazy.

Which, I suppose, I am.

"Yeah...didn't I just tell you that?"

"Well, yeah, but..." I mumble, embarrassed. He did tell me that. _Idiot. Does he need another reason to commit you?_

"_Anyway,"_ The doctor huffs. "Noe told me they tried to confront you about it, but you ran away and no one could get in contact with you." He gives me a pointed looks, so sharp I look away.

"Kayashima, on the information I have gathered about you, I could have you placed in a mental institution under constant surveillance. You've proven to be a threat to yourself."

I nod, my hair obscuring my vision. This is it. I'm going to the hospital. _And they'll never let me out._

"You're damn lucky Nakatsu came in."

I look up. "What?"

"He came in right as we were discussing possibly calling the police and enlisting their help to find you."

I laugh. Wow, Nakatsu. Wow. _You saved me._

"He said he got ahold of you at that you were okay. He told me not to do anything about it before they talked to you."

I nod. And wait. I can feel Umeda's eyes on me, like he's accusing me of something.

"Nakao described your cut as being one vertical cut on the inside of your forearm. Not a bunch of little cuts."

I keep my head down. There's no use in arguing with the throwdown.

"You've cut yourself sometime in the last 36 hours. Most people who cut themselves averagely do it on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. You obviously can't go two days without harming yourself."

My nails have dug themselves into my palms, drawing blood. I feel like a prisoner waiting for the executioner's blow.

"I think your needs would best be met in a psychiatric care facility."

_Crack._

I'm done. That's it. He's getting his keys now. He's going to lead me out to his car and lock the doors at drive me straight to the hospital and stay and watch to make sure they tie me up tight so I can never escape.

Umeda walks over to his file cabinet and flips through a drawer.

"I'm giving your father a call." I look up.

"To tell him I'm going to the hospital?"

"To discuss possible treatment options for you."

My heart inflates. "You mean I'm not going inpatient?"

"I didn't say that." He snaps. The old, bitter Umeda is back. "He's your father. He knows what's best for you."

I slump in my seat. My father does not 'know what's best for me.' He knows to ignore me. Go about and live his life, with his job and wife, like I don't exist. And why shouldn't he? I was an accident. The product of too many drinks and a dark bedroom. I exist because my mom was abused and would screw anyone who whispered a sweet word in her ear and because my father couldn't keep it in his pants.

He never wanted me. No one did. Why should they care if I cut my skin open?

_They don't care._

Umeda swears and puts the phone down. "Went straight to voicemail."

_Yes._

"They're probably at church."

This is a lie. My father is not religious. He would never waste an hour of his time going to church. And Miyako...from what I can tell from her last phone call, she's on one of her Islam kicks again. And I'm pretty sure Friday is their day of worship anyway.

But it's a Sunday morning, so hopefully, _Umeda will buy it._

Umeda huffs and looks out the window.

"Well, you have shown desire to heal. And you do have that monkey Nakatsu for a roommate..." He ponders for a minute, then turns to me.

"Call Nakatsu. He can walk you back to your dorm room. I'll call you to my office when your father or stepmother calls me back.

"I'm not allowed to walk home by myself?" I ask, digging my phone out of my pocket.

"Nope. Can't have you trying to hurt yourself. If you don't want to go to the hospital right this minute, better be prepared to be on watch."

* * *

><p>Nakatsu shows up quickly after I text him. I'm embarrassed I have to be watched like a child, but Nakatsu just tells me to let him do the worrying.<p>

We walk back home in complete silence. I've never regarded anyplace as safe, but if there was ever a place I didn't feel threatened, it was in the dorm room I shared with Nakatsu. His aura bathes me in a bright orange glow, and it almost melts the ice around my face.

His aura is stormy today. He's worried about me, I know, but what is he mad about?

"Hey." He throws a pair of socks at my back, and I twist around.

"I just...want to let you know that we don't want to lose you. All of us, I mean." Nakatsu flicks a couple of stray bleached hairs out of his face. "Nakao, Mizuki, Sano...even Noe and Sekime."

"Wow." I say, moving my feet so I'm facing him square on. "I always thought I was just your creepy roommate who saw dead people."

"Well, you kinda were for a while." Nakatsu grins goofily. "But we all think of you as a really good friend. Really."

I nod and look down. Nakatsu moves across the room and pulls me into an embrace. His warmth enveloped me, thawing the ice around my body. And then his hug lasted a bit too long. And I could feel his nose in my hair, his hands traveling down my back...

"Uh, Nakatsu? You can let go now."

"What? Oh, yeah! Sorry!"

* * *

><p>Nakatsu is flipping through a textbook on his bed, laying on his stomach while drinking a can of soda. I sit at his desk reading a novel for Lit class. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his gaze flick over to me every few minutes, making sure I haven't somehow gotten up and escaped without him noticing.<p>

My skin is itching. I scratch at it, hoping it'll take away the need to cut, but it only succeeds in making Nakatsu suspicious and telling me if I didn't stop scratching he'd cut my fingernails.

I used to think Nakatsu was like Ryoto...always trying to get me out of my shell.

Now I see it's different. Nakatsu...really cares. Cares to the point where he'll make sacrifices to ensure my safety. Ryoto never cared if I felt safe.

No, that's a lie.

He did care.

_And that's the worst part._

I sigh. Ryoto lulled me into a false sense of safety. Of happiness.

Just to tear it away.

My icy heart clenches as it remembers that day.

It wasn't any different than any other day. I woke up and went to school. I hung out with Ryoto at lunch. Paid attention in class.

Nothing was different until it was time to walk home. It was only a couple weeks until we graduated; it was warm and the cherry blossoms had bloomed. Ryoto came up to me at the end of the day and said he wasn't able to walk home with me that day.

He avoided eye contact with me the whole time.

I went on my way. I was a little disappointed, but I didn't mind being alone. It gave me...time to think.

I was just enjoying the day when they grabbed me and pulled me into an alleyway.

I'd gotten jumped before that. Many, many times. I've had bones broken, gotten knocked out, and had black eyes so swollen I couldn't see out of them for days.

This was so, so much worse.

He was with them this time.

They pushed me up against a rattling chain link fence and tied my hands to it above my head. I don't remember them actually beating me. I just hung there, trying to convince myself _it wasn't his face among them._

I know they hit me. I'm pretty sure one took a knife out and cut me, but I really don't remember. I had already given up the minute I saw him.

_I thought you were my friend._

At some point, they stopped attacking me and walked away. Just like that. Didn't wait around to see if they had broken anything. Didn't try to find out if I could untie myself and get home. Didn't even check to see if I was still breathing.

They didn't care.

I can thank them for that, at least.

Ryoto stayed back. After a minute of watching me, breathing heavily and bleeding, he walked over and quickly unwound the knots that bound me to the fence. I fell to the ground at his feet. Coughing, I managed to look up at him.

_"I thought we were friends."_

His eyes were blazing with hatred. The bright flames of anger licked the inside of his irises, burning a hole in my heart.

_"How could I ever be friends with someone who's half-dead? Freak!"_

He kicked me in the gut, but no pain could compare to the burn of his words.

I dared to look up once more. The fury in Ryoto's eyes had flickered out. All that was left was the endless waters of sorrow. For a second I thought he would help me. That he would apologize. That he would be my friend again.

_Then he turned away._

I somehow got myself home. The bloodstained rope found its way into my hands, though at the time I didn't know I was going to use it.

Miyako called to me _"Hey, sweetie!" _as I walked in. I slammed the front door behind me and ignored her _"Taiki? Is something wrong?" _as I walked up the stairs. She must have figured I didn't want to talk because she didn't come out to see me.

I didn't think about it. I just tied the rope to the beam in my closet. Got up on a chair. Tied it around my neck.

And kicked the chair out from under me.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

I remember coming back sometime after my dad cut me down. I was laying on the floor, my father holding my hand _"It's gonna be okay, Taiki. Oh my God, please be okay. Please." _as he brushed the hair back from my face.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

I remember being in the ambulance. My father rode with me, but he kept his distance so the paramedics could do their work and zap my heart-

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

I pretended to be asleep when they first let him and Miyako in to see me. _I didn't want to explain to them why I did what I did. _

He collapsed in a chair and took hold of my hand and lowered his head onto the mattress

_and cried._

I absent mindedly brush away the tear sliding down my cheekbone.

_I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry._

* * *

><p><em>If I die young,<em>

_Bury me in satin, lay me down in a bed of roses._

_Set me in the river at dawn,_

_Send me away with the words of a love song._

* * *

><p><strong>Oh. My. God. This chapter was a MONSTER. I almost died.<strong>

**I feel...not too great about it. But I feel bad about making you all wait.**

**For those of you who wanted A NakatsuXKayashima moment...there it is. It's awkward and badly written. But yeah. Sorry. I love NakaKaya to death, but I want this fic to focus solely of Kayashima. I think I'll write a NakatsuXKayashima fic after this, we'll see.**

**Yeah, so I've started school now (you can curse me for choosing to take APUSH) so I have like, no time to breathe. So be patient! I'm really trying! I didn't try out for the school musical for writing. I'm making legit sacrifices!**

**So if you haven't noticed, If I Die Young was stuck in my head while writing this. Along with 'Jar of Hearts' "Black Tattoo' 'Papercut' 'Leave Out All The Rest' 'Numb' 'A Man Don't Have To Die' and 'Sing' by various artists. (I'm lazy. Review if you want to know the artists.)**

**So I'll probably be doing the JV show choir this year (We're doing Rolling on the Deep! I HAVE to!) so you can all kill me soon.**

**Random Fact: Physics is a lie, made up by gnomes.**


	7. Candles

_When my time comes, forget the wrong that I've done._

_Help me leave behind some reasons to be missed._

_Don't resent me._

_And when you're feeling empty,_

_Keep me in your memory._

_Leave out all the rest._

* * *

><p>The day passes uneventfully. I was kept on edge; waiting for the speakers to call me to the infirmary, or even Umeda knocking on my door.<p>

But nothing happened.

Absolutely nothing.

I do homework. Read a bit. Take a bath. (I note Nakatsu has made all the razors disappear.) Wonder where the hell the quack doctor is.

I guess I should be grateful. I don't want to go to the hospital. If I do, they'll weigh down my brain with pills and tell me everything I think is wrong. And my aunt will drive up and yell at my father, and she'll probably ignore my father and pay to have me DNA tested herself this time.

But nobody comes for me.

When night falls and it's time to go to sleep, Nakatsu waits until I have gone to bed before slipping under his own covers, despite the fact he's been yawning all day. Even after I start breathing slowly to make him think I've fallen asleep, his aura still indicates he's wide awake. He drifts in and out, exhaustion battling with his concern for me.

I think about running.

It would be easy. I have a credit card I could use until my father cancels it. (And I knew he wouldn't. He wouldn't want to chance me starving, and if I were careless the authorities could track me down. Not that I would be.) I could go to the bank and empty my account. I didn't need much from here. Throw some clothes in a bag, a few books. That's all I really need.

Where could I go? I couldn't stay in Japan. The police would track me down in no time. I'd need to get out of the country, fast, and without needing to use my passport. Which I doubt I could safely do.

I could just run and live on the mountains. I'd have the ghosts of lost hikers and suicide victims to keep me company. I could cut and starve and scream as much as I wanted and no one would care.

I could. The one person who would stop me will fall asleep soon enough. I really could.

But for some reason, I stay bound to my bed.

It's not my mother's doing. She's sitting on the edge of my bed, looking up at the sky. Resigned. Given up on me. Which makes sense. I'm hopeless, right? There's nothing she can do for me now. There's nothing anyone can do to help me. I'm done. I'm already dead.

_I'm lost._

I can't find my way out of the snow. I've been freezing out here so long, I don't think I can remember the warmth of others around me.

Because I won't let them near me. I've constructed ice walls around me to protect myself from my friends and family. I've fallen into the freezing lake, then built high towers around the perimeter and posted armed guards to prevent anyone from trying to pull me out, bring me to the sun.

_'Look what happened when you let HIM in.' _The voice in my head curls around my brain. _'He pushed you in deeper. Just to watch you drown.'_

"Stop..." I mumble to my pillow. I turn my face into in and surpress the urge to scream. "Stop..."

"Kayashima?" I raise my head a fraction of a centimeter at the sound of my name. Nakatsu's groggy voice floats up to my level. "Kayashima? Taiki? Are you alright?" With every syllable, I can hear the sleepiness in his voice evaporate and the telltale sounds of his bedsheets being thrown to side as he swung his legs onto the ground. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"No." I bite my lip to keep from screaming it out. "I'm fine. Just a bad dream." Nakatsu's aura relaxes. I can breathe again. "Sorry for waking you."

"No...it's fine. Wake me up if you...if you feel like hurting yourself, okay?"

I close my eyes and refuse to feel the happiness and acceptance that came with Nakatsu admitting he cared more about me cutting than sleep. Refused to admit that Nakatsu was doing this because he cared.

_'Because no one cares.'_

"Thanks. I'm fine. You can go back to sleep now."

Nakatsu mumbled something in response, but I don't hear, because my head is back underwater again.

* * *

><p>That night, it seemed like the ghosts were especially committed to keeping me submerged in the icy waters than before.<p>

That day, the darkest day of my life, repeated itself a million times in my head. Every new time seemed to last forever, one day dragging into thousands of years. Every little detail jumping out to jab me. Suck the blood from my wounds. Drive me a little closer to the edge.

_Killing me._

But it takes no time at all. It just keeps repeating itself. Over and over. And the clock never changes. The sun won't rise and release me from night's deadly grip.

I roll over from my stomach onto my back. My mother notices and bends over to kiss my forehead. Her hand curls around mine, not quite touching it.

I don't know if she wants me to heal. I know I make her sad. I can't tell if that's because I'm the one who killed her or because I've been dead my whole life.

I don't know if it causes her the same pain it causes my father. Knowing that I'm rejecting their gift of life. Knowing I resent them for ever giving it to me.

My father ignored every sign I gave him during my years of junior high. Ignored me when I'd stop eating for days at a time, feeling unworthy of the life it gives. Ignored me when I'd pass out from the hunger. Ignored me when I wore long sleeve shirts in July. Ignored me when I was daring enough to wear a shirt without sleeves to dinner once a few days after I slashed myself to ribbons with a razor, just to see if they'd notice.

The didn't.

At least, they pretended not to.

I wasn't important enough to acknowledge.

I sigh and crack my neck. My father admitted he knew what was going on at the time, the one time he let the tears fall in front of me. I lay in the hospital bed, my arm stuck with needles that were pumping drugs and water and God only knows what else, unable to speak. He clutched me hand and kept his tearful eyes away from my blank ones.

That day was the day he told me I was going to Osaka. He told me I wouldn't ever have to see my old classmates ever again. (Many of them actually emailed me apologies after they heard what I did. Ryoto was not one of them. He was the only one who mattered.) He all but forbade me from leaving the house alone while I was still living with him.

He wrote to the school personally and told them about my 'situation' and asked if they could possibly match me up with a more upbeat roommate. He had my doctor put me on about five million different medications to make my self-of-steam bigger, another to make my craziness small. More to make the flashing blades disappear. And yet more to make me exhausted. So tired I couldn't even think about trying to hurt myself again. I could hardly drag myself out of bed to eat dinner some days, with the bricks the pills tied to my head.

He put in so much effort in keeping me alive, when he could have just let me die. Left him alone.

_He loves you._

I look up, but my mother is silent. She's staring sorrowfully up at the moon. Probably wishing she could be there instead of stuck to her failed son. The ghost that's stuck in the world of the living.

What kind of ghost can't even die?

I hear the non-mistakable sound of footsteps ascending the stairs. My hand goes to my face, and I realize that salty, wet tears have slid down my face.

I've been crying. As I realize that, a half-choked sob escapes from my throat, like an admission of guilt.

And I woke Nakatsu up.

"Kayashima? What's wrong?" Nakatsu's voice is slightly panicked, slightly relieved in seeing me here in one piece.

I wipe my eyes. "N-nothing. I'm f-f-fine..."

Nakatsu's strong arms wrap around me. He sits on the bed and uses the hand that's not currently wrapped around my waist to push my face into his chest. His fingers trail through my hair, in an almost pet-like fashion.

"You can cry." He whispers into my hair. "In fact, it's probably better if you did. I'm not going to leave you. Just cry."

I did.

* * *

><p>When I wake up in the morning, Nakatsu is on the floor, his comforter thrown on top of him and his pillow jammed under his head. My blankets are arranged neatly on top of me, carefully placed to keep me warm.<p>

Then I remember what day it is. February 22nd. It's my birthday. I'm seventeen.

Huh. Forgot that was coming up.

I slide out of the frozen bed and shake Nakatsu.

"Nakatsu...get up. It's time for school."

He groans and stretches, then seems to realize where he is and bolts upright, almost knocking me in the head.

"Right...yeah. Let's go."

We dress quickly and head over to the cafeteria. The others look surprised to see me, but no one says anything until Nakao decides to make his grand entrance.

"'Shima, didn't you go to the doctor yesterday?" He asks in disbelief a few seconds after he sits down. I take a non-committal sip of coffee. The others lean in, eager for the answer to the questions they've all been wanting to ask.

"Yeah. He's calling my father." It's truth enough.

"That's all?"

"Do you want me gone?" I snap, then immediately regret. His face fell.

"No...that's why I wanted Umeda to do something."

The arrival of Nanba distracted everyone from interpreting the meaning of Nakao's words.

The day passed by yet again without me being summoned by the doctor. I was beginning to wonder if Umeda had simply forgotten about me.

At the end of the day, I decided to go straight to Umeda and ask if he was going to cart me off to the nut house or keep me here. I deserved to know.

When the last bell rings, Nakao gets up and starts walking with me. I would have just bolted for the door as soon as school was over if it hadn't meant worrying my friends. I ignore his chatter as we walk over to the infirmary.

I practically want to go in there and yell at the doctor at this point. I'm furious about being kept in the dark, about being told what will be best for me like a child. But the fury and resentment evaporated as soon as the snow stops crunching underneath my boots and I saw the two people standing in front of the doctor's office, her face turned into his sleeve, him looking down in sorrow. They both raise their heads as they hear me approach. He actually puts on a fake smile and raises his hand in a half-wave when he sees me.

"Dad."

* * *

><p>After a brief introduction of Nakao to Miyako and Dr. Kayashima, my parents load me up in their car and take me out for a 'birthday dinner.' Utter bullshit. They wouldn't drive all the way out here just to take me out to dinner. We all know why they're here. We all know this is going to end with me being carted off to the loony bin.<p>

But they haven't said a word since I saw them out in front of Dr. Umeda's office.

So, here I sit. Eating dinner. Sitting on one side of the table while my parents sit on the other; hands clasped beneath the table in support. A united front against Misfit Son. Their guns are loaded and my defenses are down. It will be a short battle.

...So why are we still here?

We've been silent for about eight minutes now. Pretending to be absorbed in the food. I slouch forward and keep my hair hanging in my face so I don't have to look at them. My arms are hidden under my sweatshirt, but I can feel the cuts burn brightly to alert everyone of their presence.

Miyako clears her throat, and I glance up through the dark ends of my hair. Her contribution to the conversation has basically been asking about my grades and talking about her niece and three nephews. But now she gives a pointed look to my father, Dr. Kayashima, and stands.

"I have to return a few phone calls to a couple clients." She says. "I'll be back soon." She smiles at me before walking away. I roll my eyes.

She's lying through her teeth. She wouldn't call her clients back during one of her rare visits with me. She'll probably just call her sister and chat with her until we come back out. She's faking it so she can give my father and me some time alone. Some time to talk.

Whatever.

My father keeps his eyes trained to my downturned face. Watching me. I don't look up. I won't give him the satisfaction. Dr. Kayashima clears his throat.

"Taiki, I-"

"I know why you're here, Dad." I interrupt, throwing my chopsticks onto the plate. "Dr. Umeda called you. I know. I told him." I peek through my eyelashes to gauge his reaction. His face remains impassive.

"Yes...he did tell me you came to him under the influence of your friends."

"It was my own choice." I raise my head, daring him to look into my eyes for the first time in years. Of course, he averts his gaze.

"Your friends went to your doctor before you out of concern, did they not?"

"I didn't have to go myself." I say, curling my fists underneath the table. If I had an ounce of guts, I'd take this stupid steak knife on the table and roll up my sleeve _and slash._

But that would majorly screw me.

So I bite my lip.

"I don't care." My father says, hanging his head. "Whether you admit it or not, you're hurting yourself. Again." He closes his eyes and inhales sharply through his nose. He breathes out shakily.

"So you're actually going to say something to me this time?" I bite. "Not just ignore me and go on with your perfect life?"

His eyes flash at mine, cold cobra eyes. Venom snakes in and wraps around my lips. "What am I supposed to do? Wait to find you strung up somewhere again?"

He grips the table, shaky breathing, trying to keep himself from _getting up and beating me senseless._

"And my life is nowhere perfect." He looks up, staring at the space above my left ear. "Not when you want to die."

I bite my tongue so hard I taste blood.

_Why the hell do you care?_

"I'm fine."

"You are not!" My father slams the table so hard the plates shake and I jump. He shakes. Just...shakes.

"You're cutting yourself. You're thinking about killing yourself again. You're sick. You need _help._"

_Why? Why are you all so concerned with fixing me? I'm broken beyond repair. I'm not even worth the effort. Why? Why do you care?_

I stare at him. He still avoids meeting my eye. Like he always does.

_If you want to see me break..._

"Why do you care?"

That must have shocked him enough to look even close to my face.

"What do you mean, why do I care?"

"Why do you care if I cut? Why do you care if I die?" My hand grips the knife. "Why do you care about me at all?"

Dr. Kayashima's hand covers the one currently gripping the knife. He runs his thump across my knuckle.

"You're my son." He says softly. "I love you."

I drop the knife on the table. My hand retreats; away from this man.

"Like hell you do." I spit. "You never even paid attention to me when I was right in front of you. You didn't even say anything when you knew I was cutting myself."

"I was scared for you."

"Whatever." I get up. There is no point in continuing this conversation. _It's over._

"Wait! Taiki!" He grabs my arm as I reach the partition to our eating area. "Please listen to me. I'm your father. I love you."

I yank my arm away.

"You don't even know that." I say to the floor. "What about this other guy? Mom's old boyfriend? If you're so sure I'm yours, why don't you let my aunt do a DNA test?"

No words. I knew he had nothing for that.

"I think we're done here."

I turn to go, but he grabs my shoulders and yanks me back to face him.

"You're not going anywhere. We're going to sit down and talk. And after that, Miyako and I are driving you straight to the hospital. You're clearly not stable." He shakes as he makes his way to the table, putting his palms down on the smooth surface to keep himself upright. I feel like I might explode from the anger stemming from being told what to do.

_'You never know what a person is capable of until they're pushed to the edge.'_

_Shut up. Just shut up!_

"So you're just going to lock me up again?" I nearly yell. "Just going to lock me away so you don't have to deal with me?"

"I would like nothing more than to bring you home and not have to worry about keeping anything sharp lying around." He says quietly. "I don't want to have to worry about you talking to dead people. I don't want to worry about coming home and finding you dead." He looks up, straight into my soul. For once. "Please, Taiki. Please stop hurting yourself."

My heart explodes.

"Is this what you don't want?"

I pick up the slick steak knife from the table. Dr. Kayashima moves to grab it, but I'm faster. I roll down my sleeve to reveal the old scars, my new wounds on my arm.

"Is this what you're afraid of?"

I don't think. I just make the slashing motion. I wait for the pain. I wait for something.

Nothing. I can't feel a thing.

I raise my arm and let the blood fall into the canyons that separate me and my father and slick the million miles of bumpy road between us.

"Well, guess what? You're not my father! You can't tell me what to do!"

I turn and run.

I ignore Dr. Kayashima's frantic yells as he comes after me. I ignore Miyako as she yells something after me as I tear out of the restaurant.

_'It's over.' _The demon inside me says. _'It's done. And so are you.'_

_Just stop! Stop! Stop doing this to me!_

* * *

><p>My attention lapses in and out. The scenes in front of me change as if they're on a reel. I don't feel cold. I don't feel short of breath. I don't feel any pain from the slash on my arm or the gaping hole in my heart.<p>

I have no sense of what time it is. How long I ran. Where I was going.

The demon fights for control. _'You're done. End it now. Nobody will care. They'll be happier without you.' _

I don't fight back.

I find myself standing on the grounds of my school. Blink and I'm inside my dorm. Exhale and I find my feet pumping up and down on the stairs. Brush the snow and blood away from my eyes and I'm opening the door to the room I share with Nakatsu.

_No one is here._

Nakatsu is at soccer. My parents are at the restaurant.

Where am I?

_I'm lost._

I walk up to my personal level. My hands clench and suddenly I'm ripping books from their shelves. Pages fall out and flutter to the floor. Sweaters and pants and socks follow them. My bed is ripped apart. I can't seem to satisfy the voice in my head

_"What are you waiting for? No one is here to stop you. Do it. End yourself now."_

I want to scream, but someone has snuck down my throat and wrapped barbed wire around my vocal cords.

_"No one cares. You need to die. Tonight."_

Leave me alone. Just go away. Leave me in peace.

It won't be satisfied. My feet bring me to the bathroom, and my hands search the medicine cabinet for my neglected pills.

_It's empty._

Damn you, Nakatsu.

My grandmother's pearl handled knife slithers out from between Nakatsu's mattress and boxspring and finds its way to the side of the sink.

I know what to do.

I crank the bathtub handle to BOIL. I don't watch it fill up. I turn my back and strip off all my clothes. My fist closes over the handle of the knife. I stare at my reflection in the condensation collecting on the mirror. I'm paler than the dead. The blue water under my skin is frozen. It doesn't move.

I cut.

I put the knife up against the side of my neck and slash down to below my heart. Deep enough to flay me open. Deep enough so I can finally feel something.

The ice cage screams and wraps itself closer around my burning heart.

Euphoria rushes through me. My eyes close in content, my mouth opens but my throat has long since stopped working. I've stopped breathing.

I hack away. The ghosts inhabited my body fight for every inch, but eventually give up and fly away. I tip back my head and laugh. Salty tears fall from my normally empty eyes; sweet sweat sluices down my spine. I am finally, finally warm.

_"You're done."_

I blink and raise my hands to block the li-

* * *

><p><em>.<em>

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><p>"I'm sure he didn't come back h-." Someone says, out in my room a million miles away. Footsteps sound as they walk up the staircase, a gasp, and a scurry of feet pounding their way across the floor and throwing the door open-<p>

Noe stands in the threshold of the mortal world and my tomb. He sees the knife discarded on the floor. Sees the red paint on my face, sees the tub of blood. Sees me.

My friend's screams shatters the mirror.

* * *

><p><em>Forgetting<em>

_All the hurt inside you've learned to hide so well._

_Pretending_

_Someone else can come and save me from myself._

_I can't be who you are._

* * *

><p><strong>So. I am probably totally spoiling the effect by writing an AN, but I am anyway. **

**This chapter was really hard for me to write, not gonna lie. But honestly, I have to remember that this is Kayashima's story. I'm just telling it.**

**Thank you to the FOUR lovely people who reviewed. ESPECIALLY collineesh, who always leaves wonderful, wonderful reviews that light up my day. You are better than cake.**

**I actually got this chapter out fast. Probably because I just COULD NOT stop writing. My APUSH is neglected...that's what I will be doing when I'm through spellchecking this.**

**By the way, my brother says hi. He read this...and now he says he understands why we want him to get help for his depression. He's going inpatient tomorrow. It's kinda scary, but I love him and I'm so glad something I wrote led him to make this kind of decision. I hope that anyone who reads this who struggles with depression and/or self harm can understand how hard it is on your friends and family. (Yeah...I know it's a fanfiction...I just hope that my writing this, I help one or two people.)**

**Random Fact: There are no wild tigers in Africa. Only in Asia.**


	8. Imaginary

**_Don't turn away._**

_Don't give into the pain._

**_Don't try to hide._**

_Though they're screaming you're name._

**_Don't close your eyes._**

_God knows what lies behind them._

**_Don't turn out the light._**

_Never sleep, never die._

* * *

><p>The ceiling is purple.<p>

This is all I can think before my head explodes in a burst of white-hot flames.

I raise my hand to touch my head, convince myself I'm not actually on fire, but my body is impossibly heavy. I can't even move it. I close my eyes and block out the offensive light.

I'm in the hospital. Of course I am. I remember everything that led me here.

Noe wouldn't stop screaming. Sekime ran in and slapped him across the face before he realized the thing on the bathroom floor was me. I think he was the one to call for the ambulance; I couldn't be sure. Nakao somehow came to my side and stayed there until the paramedics arrived.

One of the paramedics jammed his finger underneath my neck, nodded to the other guys; I was a live one. They threw me on the gurney and got me in the back of the ambulance. Nakatsu wound up riding with me; how that was arranged, I have no clue.

Nakatsu stayed at my side until we arrived at the emergency room. The doctors ran me through the hallways, bright lights flying by at perfect two-second intervals. They brought me straight to the surgeon and pumped drugs into me and that's when my whole world faded to nothing for a bit.

The whole experience was rather numbing. I couldn't feel anything, not the tight grip of Nakatsu's hand or the needles they stuck in my arm. I just observed.

But now, somehow, my senses were back. And everything hurt. My whole body was sore, and my head pounded as if someone were taking a hammer and repeatedly slamming down on it.

I try again to raise my hand, but it doesn't move. A slight pressure is applied, and I crane my neck to see what the heck is going on.

My hands are bound to the bed. Thick leather straps connected to the board are currently wound around my wrists. I want to scream. _No get these offoffoff me I can't move_

The pale, slender hand holding mine is connected to a woman. Miyako.

My eyes open and she notices. She smiles at me, a sad smile, one you give to a person when you want them to think you'll be alright and you want them to know you're dying inside. Her eyes are red and her mascara is a mess. She purses her trembling lips together.

"Taiki...oh, _Taiki..._"

She bends over and presses her lips to my forehead. Not really kissing me. Just stands there.

"What's going on?" I ask when she returns to her seated position. "Why-why am I tied up?"

"Oh, sweetie..." Her hand goes to my face, her sharp nail tracing a line I'm sure was visible there. Her fake smile is gone. A tear falls. I flinch away.

"What happened?" I ask her one last time.

"What happened is you tried to kill yourself."

My father speaks, his fists in his pocket, staring at me with an unreadable expression on his face at the edge of the room.

Then it all comes roaring back. It slams me down far into the ground, deep into my grave. The ghosts that still haunt my body laugh and point fingers. I couldn't get rid of them. I couldn't free myself.

_I failed._

"And you've been tied down because it's been decided that you are a threat to yourself." Dr. Kayashima continues, in the no-nonsense business voice he usually reserves for clients. When I was little, the voice used to make me cry.

It takes a lot more now.

My head flops back down onto the paper pillow and I breathe slowly, inandout, and try not to think.

"It's going to be alright, sweetie." Miyako smooths my hair, fake smile back. The sound of my father's fist hitting the wall makes us both jump.

"Of course it's not going to be alright, Miyako." He yells. "Taiki wants to die. How can anything be alright?" My father pauses and turns his gaze to me and for one long, agonizing moment, our eyes meet. His gaze reflects back all he has always been too afraid to show me.

_Don't feel anything._

Dr. Kayashima squeezes his eyes shut and turns for the door. Within seconds he's gone and I am left alone with Miyako and my mother, who is staring out the window, ice tears rolling down her face.

"Don't pay attention to him. He's just...overwhelmed." Miyako strokes the back of my hand. He eyes are downturned; they do not meet mine.

"What happened?"

Her eyes dart up, her face open and vulnerable.

"You-you're friends...they found you." Tears again fill her eyes. "With a knife." She gestures to my bandages, which I haven't even noticed before now.

She raises one hand to cover her mouth and turns away. I close my eyes. Open them again.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself, you know."

She whips her head around, a somewhat hopeful and mostly accusing expression on her face.

"You weren't? Then what were you doing?"

I exhale loudly and tip my head back.

"I don't know."

"You nearly died, Taiki. I think you knew what you were doing."

Her voice breaks on the last word. She supresses a sob in the back of her throat, but I hear it anyway.

_'You failed.'_

My hold on her hand tightened and she brushes a tear away.

"I-I was just..." I search for words, unable to find them. Miyako puts her finger to my lips, silencing me.

I watch her breathe. She's trying not to cry; trying to be strong.

"Where are my friends?" I ask. She flips her hair back.

"That Nakatsu boy, your roommate, he rode with you. They told him only family members were allowed after your surgery and he wouldn't be allowed to see you until you were stable enough to be moved out of intensive care."

I attempt to sit up, but the restraints dig into my wrists, and I flop back down again.

"I'm in intensive care?"

She nods sadly. "The psychiatric unit, honey. It'll all be okay."

"No. No. I said I'd never go back there. Never going back..."

Colors swirl across my vision. I can't think straight. My thoughts are all a jumbled mess of nothing...

I am vaguely aware of Miyako's hand on my forehead, smoothing my hair down. I keep my eyes closed and breathe.

"I don't want to be here." I finally say, when my coherency returns. Miyako sighs.

"They want you here until you are stable. And when that is is up to you." She gives me a small smile. My heart leaps.

"Then I can go home?"

"No." She turns away, tears already falling. "They gave us the name of a clinic that specializes in...well, mental patients who see ghosts."

"So you're sending me to an asylum."

"Asylums don't exist anymore, honey." She says. "It's a hospital. They're focused on healing you."

I stare down at the hospital bracelet wound around my wrist. It has my name on it. TAIKI KAYASHIMA. Like a label. The name seems wrong, somehow. Like it's backwards, or part of the name is missing.

"Hospitals don't do a damn thing for me."

"They saved your life." Her eyes flash at me, angry snake eyes, the I'm-your-mother-and-I-know-what's-best-for-you look I hate so much.

_You're not my mother._

"If that sweet boy Noe had found you even five minutes later..." She bites her lip and turns away as she cries.

"What did the doctors say?"

She brushes the tears away and turns back to face me.

"You were dying from blood loss and a few minor internal wounds. Your heartbeat was twenty-nine beats per minute. You were barely breathing and you had hit your head when you fell." She blinks back more tears. "You basically had the blood pressure and temperature of dirt."

"I'm always cold."

She jumps up and grabs the blanket folded up at the foot of the bed and spreads it out over me.

"Sorry. It feels hot in here to me. It didn't occur to me you might be cold."

I nod. I want to go back to sleep. I'm just so tired.

The door opens again. My father walks in, eyes rimmed red. He walks over to where I am laying and collapses onto the opposite chair.

"I'm sorry." I say.

He closes his eyes and puts his head down on the mattress.

"No." He says. "I'm sorry."

* * *

><p>The nurse comes in and tells my parents visiting hours are over. My mother stays. I sleep a lot. My parents visit me everyday, at least I think they do, but I don't have a clock or window or any discernable schedule, as far as I can tell.<p>

My aunt comes to visit. She lives in Tokyo, but her apartment is on the other side of the city as my school, so I barely ever see her. She fights with my father. She says I need drugs. He tells her she has no say in what's best for me.

I ignore her when she chides me for the ghost thing. My mother just stares at her sister in amazement. How can she be so shallow?

Eventually, I am judged sane enough to be kicked out of intensive care. There is no room for Taiki in the special nuthouse. The quack doctor says he'll have a bed for me next week.

Until then, it has been decided that I will stay with my Aunt Chihara. They say I'm stable enough not to do something crazy. They all say I'm stable enough.

I failed hospitals. I failed school and not eating and not cutting myself to shreds. Failed friendship. Failed being a good son, or roommate. Failed phone calls and pills and dying. I failed life.

It's a damn good thing I'm stable.

* * *

><p>When my grandparents were still alive, I used to spend three weeks at my aunt's apartment every summer. They died the year I turned twelve. My grandmother dropped dead from a heart attack, and my grandfather just dropped off a few weeks after that. They had been married forty-five years. I guess he just didn't see the point anymore.<p>

My father drives me there without Miyako. We don't talk. I sit with my shoulders tense and my ass hanging almost off the seat. I stare out the window while he stares straight ahead, eyes out the frozen windshield and on the snowy road.

I've barely spoken to my father since that first day. Never wanted to start another fight. Miyako had always done most of the talking for us.

Today, Miyako isn't here to act as a barrier anymore.

My father parallel parks on the street. He doesn't say anything as he turns the car off and the heat dies. I unbuckle my seatbelt. His hand on mine stops me from getting out.

Dr. Kayashima exhales, already blinking back the tears he always hides from me.

"I want you to know I meant everything I said in the restaurant."

_So did I._

I bite my lip.

"I'm sorry. For how I reacted, I mean." I say. "I was being a brat. I was scared."

"I'm scared too." He whispers.

I don't know what to say next. I wish he would say something else. But he just sits there, with his hand closed around my wrist and his face turned down.

So I just get out of the car.

I haven't been back to stay with my aunt since my grandparent's funerals. Nothing has really changed. Same God-awful wallpaper over everything. Same weird odor. Same creepy china cats observing your every move. And same windowless, airless guest room I've always stayed in.

Aunt Chihara has both me and my father sit down and eat dinner. She's smug because now she can do whatever the hell she wants with me and there's nothing my father can do to stop her.

For the next few days, at least.

After a while, my aunt ushers me into the guest room. I slip underneath the covers of my bed and attempt to sleep when I hear my father yelling at my aunt.

"...not even your child, why do you care so much?"

"He's my nephew! Don't I have the right to know who's the father of my little sister's baby?"

"He's not a baby anymore." I hear the sound of ice cubes falling into a glass. My father is drinking again. "He's seventeen. In a year he'll be an adult and it won't even matter anymore."

"He's still a minor for another year." A pause. An exhale. She's probably smoking. "You never think of his mental wellbeing. Who knows the kind of shit he can get himself into during the next year, or even beyond that, if he doesn't get the proper help now?"

"How much lower can he get..." I have to press my ear up against the door to hear my father. "He tried to kill himself the other day. I nearly lost him." I can't tell if he stops talking or if I just can't hear him.

"You stand in the way of that boy's head getting fixed."

My father's fist slamming against the wall makes even me jump.

"Dammit, Chihara, he doesn't need to be fixed. He's not broken." Dr. Kayashima's voice shakes, then breaks. "He's sick. He's very sick."

My aunt says something too low for me to hear. My father roars back.

"So I'm just supposed to leave him in the hands of people like you, people who don't understand? I'm supposed to just trust you?"

"Yes. I am his aunt. His mother would have agreed with me, were she still alive."

I look over to my mother. She gives me an impassive expression.

"And I'm his father. I have a say in what happens to him."

"We'll see about that when the DNA results come in." My breath catches. "Kenchiro, that boy is most likely not even yours. If it turns out he's not, I don't think you really have any ground to stand on in this argument, now, do you?"

I jump nearly out of my skin when my father slams the door.

* * *

><p>My father does not return. I assume he took Miyako home, to their Taiki-less house. Glad to be rid of me.<p>

In the meantime, Nakatsu visits. I hadn't seen him since school that day, if you don't count him standing with my almost corpse as they rushed me to the emergency room.

Aunt Chihara leaves us alone. Nakatsu doesn't look at me. I don't say anything. It's going to be a long visit.

He finally starts the conversation.

"I hope you're proud of yourself."

This startles me enough to make me almost fall out of my chair.

"What?"

"You don't understand what you've done."

Nakatsu's voice is heavy, dripping with resentment. I don't answer. He makes up a reply in way of my silence.

"Sekime says Noe can hardly sleep anymore."

I exhale. "They all saw me."

"We all knew to some extent that you had hurt yourself." He tips his head back, expelling a sigh. "Noe had no idea what to expect. And he was the only one out of the few of us who saw that-that hadn't seen before."

I bite my lip. Noe couldn't sleep anymore. Because of me.

_'All because of you.'_

"Nakao sleeps in your bed now."

I lift my head. "Huh?"

"He-Nakao-didn't want to keep it like that...he cleaned it up for you. And he's not really close to his roommate...I think he just felt more comfortable with someone who understood what was going on."

"I bet that's not the most comfortable situation for you." I knew of Nakatsu's substantial dislike for the openly gay Nakao. And didn't blame him. Nakao's random personality changes grated on all our nerves.

Nakatsu runs a hand through his bleached hair. "Actually, that first night, after you had gone to the hospital and before Nakao came in, that was the worst." He rests his elbows on his knees. "I've never said anything about this, but your breathing kinda...relaxes me. I always listen for it when I wake up at night. So that night-"

"You didn't hear anything."

"Yeah. It freaked me out." He looks up at gives me a half-smile. "Must have run up there a dozen times, thinking you had died on me or something."

I try to laugh. It comes out sounding forced.

"How is Mizuki and Sano? Were they upset?"

Nakatsu scratches his head. "A little, yeah. Sano tries to hide his feelings, but even Nanba said he could tell it hurt him. And you know Mizuki." He rolls his eyes. "He wanted to roll in the hospital with a get-well card and everything."

I laugh. It sounds natural. "That was sweet of her."

"Huh?"

Nakatsu's eyes dart up, confused.

_Shit._

"I said that was sweet of him. Why? What did I say?"

Nakatsu shrugs it off. He seems to figure it was just a slip of the tongue. "Nothing. Look, I should probably be headed back." He pushes himself up.

"Hey...when you're done with treatment and everything, are you coming back to Osaka High?"

"I'm not sure." I yawn. "Probably not. My father will probably want me back home. And I have no idea how long I'll be there for."

I stand up. Nakatsu grabs me and pulls me tight.

"Don't forget your friends." He says to my hair. "We'll always be here for you. We'll always care."

_You don't know how easily it is for a friend to stab another in the back._

Nakatsu releases me. He smiles and walks out the door with his head raised high, a bit of pep back in his step.

_I do. I've been there. I know._

* * *

><p>I don't count the days I'm at my Aunt's. She locks the door to the guestroom when I'm in it, and she watches me whenever I'm not.<p>

I hate this. This is humiliating. I don't want to be watched like a child. I don't want people to treat me like a criminal for no reason.

_'If only you had locked the door, they wouldn't have gotten to you in time.'_

I shake these thoughts away, but still

_Why the hell didn't I lock the door?_

My mother drifts around. She doesn't stay with me all the time. She'll flit away for several hours at a time, always returning to watch over me as I sleep.

During one night when my mother is gone and I'm looking for ways to entertain myself, I come across Aunt Chihara's mail for that day, unsorted.

I see the hospital logo on it.

I pick it up, but my aunt snatches it out of my hands.

"Hasn't that no-good father of yours ever taught you not to touch other people's mail?" She snarls, whirling away to read it in peace.

That night she stays up late on her computer.

The next day she tells me to take a nap while she runs out to the store. I'm sure she meant to lock the door to my room, but when I tested it, the lock clicked and the door opened.

_Oh, well._

The letter with the hospital logo sit on the counter. No envelope right now. I pick it up with shaky hands.

_DNA RESULTS OF TAIKI KAYASHIMA_

I skim down, already dreading the answer. When I see it, my heart stops.

_CONCLUSION: TAIKI KAYASHIMA IS OF LITTLE/NO BLOOD RELATION TO KENCHIRO KAYASHIMA._

I place my hands on top of the paper to _shred it._

* * *

><p><em>Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming<em>

_Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights._

_Oh how I long for the deep sleep dreaming._

_The goddess of imaginary light._

* * *

><p><strong>So I wanted to get this up yesterday...didn't happen. Sorry bout that. My already late English paper came before you guys. I know. Shock.<strong>

**Actually, I wanted to post this yesterday because, as my fellow inhabitants of America already know, yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I would just like to waste a bit more of your time to remind everyone how important it is to live without violence. As my Facebook status yesterday said: 'Always forgive, never forget. Remember 9/11/01.'**

**So anyway. I feel like I totally went out on a bender on this chapter. It's a lot of aimless Kayashima rambles. It's gone totally off Hana Kimi now! Well, as long as you guys like, I'll keep writing. ;)**

**Though I probably won't be cranking out chapters as fast now. Two Honors courses, an AP, part-time job, writing these, and soon, show choir? Might as well kiss my four hours of sleep a night goodbye. (I'm so tired! I'm running on pure sugar right now.) Oh, playlist for this chapter: 'Candles' by Hey Monday, 'Raise Your Glass' Glee (don't ask) 'Rolling In The Deep' Adele, 'False Pretense' by RJA. And I love this song, so you should all listen to 'Black Tattoo' by FM Static. I'm singing it as my senior solo at my last choir concert. :)**

**Random (And Morbid) Fact: Construction of the Pentagon started on September 11th, 1941.**


	9. Listen To The Rain

_Listen to each drop of rain._

_Whispering secrets in vain._

_Frantically searching for someone to hear_

_their story_

_Before the hit the ground._

* * *

><p>My hands nearly make the tear when I hear a cough and footsteps from the aparment above. I jump as if I was caught. This is ridiculous, of course, my aunt wouldn't be back for at least another hour. But it gives me so time to form a new thought in my head. So genuis I wonder why I never thought of it before.<p>

I go to my aunt's room and boot up her computer. After a few quick searches I wipe the browsing history and press down on the power button and make the power cord disappear. I'm out in the kitchen again, hunting around for my wallet. I find Aunt Chihara's secret cash stash and stuff that in my pocket as well.

It takes less than ten minutes and I'm out of there.

I hail a cab when I get out of the building. The driver is wearing oversized sunglasses and smokes a cigarette. Perfect. He won't remember me.

I tell him to drive to the bank. I empty my account. I read off the address I printed off the internet. He doesn't want to drive that far out of the city. Says there's a blizzard on the way and he doesn't want to get stuck, and there's no way he'll get fare back in.

Never mind why a teenager needs to empty his bank account and drive miles outside the city limits.

I just wave the cash in front of his face and tell him to hurry.

While he's driving I'm wondering why I haven't even wondered before. How I don't look anything like my father. How my aunt has _always _implied that I was not related to him. Did I look anything like this other guy? Like my_-how do I say this?_-biological father?

_I'm not so sure about this._

I tap my nail against the bone of my knee. The ghosts inside me scream that this is a bad idea; that I should just go back to that sad little apartment before Aunt Chihara comes home, or better yet, take a running jump off a bridge and get it over with.

I stifle a groan while my options pop up. I could go back. There was a slim possibility I could sneak back in without my aunt ever even finding out I left. Though, if she did find out, she'd be beyond furious. And no matter what the outcome of that would be, she'd be on the phone with my father about the results. File a lawsuit if he refused to give up custody.

_And she'd lock me up. No matter what._

Screw that option.

The other-ever present-option flicks through my mind. The bad one-the old that would get me locked in the padded cell permanently if the doctors knew how much I think of it.

_...body found..._

That was _not_ going to be me. I was determined now.

I won't jump off in the middle of the race. I have only one choice. Move forward.

"We're here." The cab driver pulls up on the side of the road beside the motel. I pay him and get out. He speeds away. Doesn't even care.

_No one cares._

I read the numbers off of the paper, even though I already know them by heart.

My feet shake as I make my way inside, up to the front desk. Heavy iron chains have wound their way around my rib cage and my arms; dragging me down further in the icy waves. Each step weighs ten million pounds and take forever and no time at all.

The man at the front desk barely raises his eyes to acknowledge my presence.

"Help you?" He lazily flicks a page in his magazine. I draw myself to my full height.

"I need to see Jiro Zentaro."

"Room seven." He replies. Never even looks up at my face.

Perfect.

My heart races as I make my way down the hall. Room 2 is missing its doorknob. Room 4 has a hole kicked in the door. Room 5 is missing its five; only a shape of slightly less faded wood is left as proof of its existence.

my head screams-_stupid/loser/emo/cutter/poser/fake/**freak**_- as I pause outside the door of seven. The demons in my head scream at me to turn around. Run. Go back.

_'You don't know how this will end.'_

I find myself with my hand raised, the knock still echoing in the air. I didn't knock. I don't remember doing so.

But footsteps make their way across the floor.

The doorknob turns.

Jiro Zentaro stares down at me. He mouth opens slightly, then snaps closed. His aura is a dark red, almost frighteningly vivid.

He knows. He understands.

Suddenly his eyes dart up, above my head, and looks both ways before grabbing my arm and forcefully pulling me inside the room.

* * *

><p>I hold out my arms to steady myself while Jiro shuts the door and throws over the bolt. My heart drops. <em>This was a bad idea.<em>

He turns to face me. I brace my hands against the back of the nearest piece of furniture, which happened to be a chair.

He breathes slowly, in and out, a steady rhythm set to the script. Neither one of us has memorized our lines. We haven't even looked past the first page.

"You." He breathes, so soft it's barely audible. "You're...you're her..."

'I'm sorry, this is probably really awkward..." I say, eyes trained to the floor. "But my name is Taiki Kaya-well, I'd prefer it if I was just called Taiki." I say, blush working its way up in my cheekbones. "I'm your-"

"My son." He interrupts. "Of course. You have to be, if you're here."

I look up into his eyes. He's staring at me like I'm a new alien species he has to study before he lets his guard down. I take the already worn slip of paper from my pocket and unfold it. I hand it to him.

He scoffs as he reads, then folds it back up and places it in his back pocket.

"That asshole, Kenchiro, he make you get a DNA test done?" His eyes narrow already blaming my father for this.

"No, no!" I wave my hands, as if that could erase his doubt. "No, my aunt had it done. My fa-Dr. Kayashima had nothing to do with it." I stumble, wanting the awkwardness of these first few minutes over with.

He cocks his head as he watches me. "Let me guess. Chihara forced you to get one."

"Well, she had me tested without me even knowing." I admit. He laughs a little to himself.

"Figures. She's the biggest busybody I've ever seen." He stares at something above my head for a moment.

I use the pause to take in the room. The floor was an ugly shade of green, and the yellow curtains had moth holes in them. A minifridge, microwave, and hotplate sat in one corner, and crates were stacked along the window wall; crates that seemed to hold loads of magazines and-to my surprise-books. Many books. The room was dark and smelled weird, but the bed was made and empty food containers were thrown in the trash where they belonged. He kept his place clean.

Not something you would expect from an abusive alcoholic.

"Nice place, huh?" He smiles sadly when he sees me looking. "Room and board are part of my deal here. Cheapest way to find a place to sleep."

"Yeah, I knew you worked here, that's how I found this place..." I trail off, forgetting where I was going. "I thought you were an alcoholic."

He tips his head back and laughs, a bitter sound. "That's right. I didn't stop until Asami..." He smiles and shakes his head. "I think...I think Asami leaving with you was the best thing she could have done for me. And you. Kenchiro obviously provided for you much better than I ever could have."

I don't reply. It would be rude to agree.

"So I'm sober now." He smiles at me, sadly happy. "Joined AA the same day she walked out."

I nod.

"So what about you? Come here to get a break from Mr. Type A?" He laughs a little at his own joke. I shift my weight.

"Not quite. How comfortable do you feel about letting me stay here for a little while?"

Laughter gone, he cocks his head and peers down at me. I suddenly feel very short.

"I'm happy to let you stay here, but why do you want to, if it's not to get a break from Kenchiro?"

I swallow. This is harder than I expected.

My eyes dart around, looking to my mother for some support, some inspiration.

She's not here.

_She left me._

"I...I have a lot of...of problems." I brilliantly say. _Smart. He's really going to want to let you stay here when you say things like that._

Zentaro takes hold of my shoulders and pushes me down into a chair. He sits down across from me and bends forward, listening intently. I take a breath and continue.

"Every since I can remember, I've...I've seen things. Things no one else can see."

He nods, like he could possibly understand. "Like dead people?"

"Yeah." I say, a little taken aback by how easily he took that. "All the time. And-and auras too. I see those too."

"Auras." He repeats. I nod.

"Yeah, they're-"

"I know exactly what they are." He nearly snaps, then seems to collect himself. "Spiritual energy...all that. But why is that such a problem?"

_How is it not a problem?_

I'm just one big problem. That's how everyone has dealt with me.

"Chihara is always freaking out about it..."

"Chihara has always stuck her nose where it doesn't belong. Don't pay attention to her." He waves his hand dismissively.

"It's not just that." I interject. "She has me put into the hospital. She had the doctors put me on all these different drugs and I just feel like I'm going to scream sometimes."

I bite my lip. I didn't mean to say so much, but it just slips out. Zentaro looks down for a second, then cracks his neck. When he meets my eye again, his eyes burn.

"Doesn't Kenchiro fight her on any of this?"

_No. He doesn't care about me at all. He doesn't care what happens to me._

"Yeah."

I can't stop the words from escaping.

"Then why are you here?"

This is it. I'm done. I'm over. _I can't run from the truth anymore._

I stand up. My coat comes off. My sweatshirt follows. I'm reaching for the hem of my shirt when he puts his hand on my wrist.

"What the heck around you doing? I don't know how this-wait, is that blood?"

I don't nod. I don't say a word. I just lift the shirt over my head and discard it onto the floor. The bandages flutter to the floor next to them.

I hear Zentaro gasp when he sees me. I don't. I don't even feel like crying.

_I don't feel anything._

There is a long vertical slash extending from my left collar bone down to my bottom right rib. And it's not the deepest, though it is the most noticeable. There's a hole underneath the left side of my rib cage. I remember pushing the knife in, tilting it upwards behind my bones. Wanting to touch what hides there.

The rest of my marks stand out, bright red sewed up with black thread, against winter skin. The infection in my arm has gone away. At least.

Zentaro takes my arm in his hand. He runs his thumb across the indentation near my elbow.

"You're...haunted."

I almost laugh at the irony of the statement. But that makes sense. Haunted. Isn't that what being held prisoner by ghosts is?

"Yeah. I guess."

He grabs me by my shoulders and holds me at arms length for a second, staring intently into my eyes. I'm so shocked I almost forget to breathe.

"You _guess_? What the hell did you do, try to kill yourself?"

Suddenly he drops his hold on me. He backs away, eyes wide and hand over his mouth.

'No." I say before I think. "Not this time."

He just shakes his head. "Then what were you doing?"

I look down. The scariest part of it is...I don't know.

I shrug. "I-I was..."

I bite my lip. Tears form behind my eyelids. I take a deep breath to prepare myself.

"I really don't know what I was doing. I fought with Dr. Kayashima and Miyako-that's his new wife-and I came back to school-"

"Osaka High." He says. "You go to Osaka High, right?"

I nod, in a hurry to get this over with. "Yes, I went back to school and I went into the bathroom I share with my roommate and did...this." I say, gesturing to my body. I feel suddenly conscious of myself and I grab my shirt off the floor and drape it over myself. Zentaro is still staring.

"My-my friend Noe found me. His roommate says he doesn't sleep anymore." I admit, too ashamed of myself to meet his eye. "After he found me, my friends called an ambulance and the doctors wanted to have me commited to this asylum for whack-jobs, and then I found these results, so I just...came here." I finish lamely. I'm embarrassed. Now that I look back on it, _that was a really stupid plan._

I pull my sweatshirt on while he stands there are processes everything. I pick my bandages from the floor and deposit them into the garbage. I grab my coat and look up at him. He still doesn't move. My gut drops.

_'I told you this was a bad idea.'_

"I'm sorry." I say, feeling completely embarrassed. "Just-just forget I was here. I'll just get out of here." I turn and make my way to the door, already trying to figure out what to do. Couldn't go back to my family. I'd get locked up. Couldn't kill myself, already swore to myself I wouldn't end like that. Now what?

I reach for the doorknob and Zentaro seizes hold of my wrist, yanking me back so hard my teeth clatter. Rubbing the sore spot, I look up. He's practically seething.

"No...no. You can't do that." He turns away, pacing the room. I stand there awkwardly; unsure of what to do. I shift from foot to foot.

"Umm..."

"You cut yourself, don't you?"

I lose concentration of my footwork. "What?"

"Those scars. You have so many scars." He clenches his fists, then unclenches them. "You cut yourself a lot, and you've been doing it for a while."

I nod. There's no point in hiding it. "Since junior high. A lot of kids were...cruel about the ghost thing."

He nods, still avoiding eye contact. I don't want to stand here. Just tell me if you want me to go or not.

_God, don't make me tell you if I've tried to..._

I don't think I could do that.

He finally clears his throat and walks towards me.

"Alright, I'll let you stay with me, on one condition. No cutting." He exhales, closing his eyes. "Absolutely no cutting, or anything else you do to hurt yourself." He opens his eyes and bores into me. I shake my head.

"That's the only think I've ever done. I swear. I promise. No cutting." I repeat. He nods.

"Good."

* * *

><p>After a bit of awkwardly trying to catch up, Zentaro says he'll run out and get us some takeout for dinner.<p>

With my mom's ex-boyfriend/my father? gone, I wander the room. I don't dare venture outside, my aunt will have no doubt reported me missing to the police by now.

I go to the crates. I find some porno magazines in one, which make me raise an eyebrow but I put them back. I skim the top ones. He's deeper than I thought. They're old books, or poetry. I'm impressed.

I lift up the top box and go to the next one. I start digging through them, but my breath catches in my throat.

They're all about ghosts. The paranormal. ESP.

ESP. Isn't that what they call what I have?

I start looking through the rest, but I can already tell the contents of all the bottom crates. It's a little creepy. I know part of my should think it's cool, but I just have the creepy feeling that he somehow

_knew about me._

A knock at the door startles me. I jump, then scramble to put the boxes back where they belong. I'm sure Zentaro wouldn't really mind, but it's not exactly appropriate.

I walk over to the door, wondering why he just doesn't let himself into his own room. Another impatient knock comes from the other side of the door. I stand on my toes to see out the peephole. My heart nearly stops.

Nakao is standing out in the hallway.

* * *

><p><em>Please don't let go,<em>

_Can't we stay for a while?_

_It's just too hard to say_

_Goodbye._

_Listen to the rain._

* * *

><p><strong>You can all kill me for waiting so damn long to write this. I know. It isn't even long. It isn't even that good.<strong>

**But still! **

**Yeah. I have no excuses. I was lazy. I chose to do all my APUSH and Biology instead of writing this. (Though I did write a very nice gaymance story for Creative Writing. 4603 words. 2603 more words than my awesome teacher asked for.) **

**Soundtrack to this chapter: 'Listen To The Rain' (Obviously) 'The Prayer of the Children' 'The Circle Of Life' 'Colors Of The Wind' (The new Lion King 3D has me in a Disney kick)**

**Aaand...my brother is coming home! 'dances'**

**Probably not permanently, just for the weekend, but still...I haven't seen him in weeks. The hospital will only let our dad see him. So me and the six other childs in our family are like "...really?" But yeah. It makes me very happy to see him.**

**Random Fact: GHOTI is pronounced 'FISH', according the my English teacher. (And also, according to him, commas save lives. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,)**


	10. Crawling

_Discomfort endlessly has pulled itself upon me._

_Distracting._

_Reacting._

_Against my will I stand beside my own reflection._

_It's haunting how I can't see_

_To find myself again._

_My walls are closing in._

_I've felt this way before._

_So insecure._

* * *

><p>At first, I stand there and wonder dumbly why Nakao is standing outside the door. While I'm pondering this, Nakao pounds the door, even louder this time. I crank the handle and pull back so hard the chain almost snaps off. Nakao jumps backwards, shocked, but recovers quickly when he sees my growling face.<p>

"What the hell do you want?"

His face seems set in stone. "Let me in, Kayashima."

"That's not my name." I begin to shut the door, but Nakao thrusts his hand into the opening.

"Wait!"

I'm tempted to slam it, here the cry and the satisfactory sound of breaking bone, but I don't.

"I know where you are now! If you don't let me in, I'll go straight to your family!"

I stop breathing. If he goes to my family, I'm done. They'll drag me straight to the asylum. My aunt will file a lawsuit against my father. Zentaro might even get in trouble.

I close the door. I quickly slide the chain and open the door again to allow Nakao to come in. He strides in, all smug because his plan worked. I shut the door.

"What the hell, Nakao? How did you find me here?"

Nakao turns and looks at me, then shakes his head. "Your stepmother called Nakatsu, wondering if you had come back to school. Nakatsu is freaking out. Your parents are freaking out. You have no idea what you're doing to them."

I bite my lips to keep the nasty words from pouring out. "How did you find me?"

Nakao keeps his back turned to me. "Does that really matter?"

I want to hit him. No, I want to destroy him. Something. I did my fingernails into my hands and close my eyes, breathing until the nasty colors disappear.

"Okay. You found me. Now what? Call my parents. Have them cart me off to the loony bin. Go ahead. I won't stop you."

I cross my arms and lie through my teeth. Of course I would stop him. I would wrestle the phone out of his hands if I had to. I just broke free. I wasn't going back. I wasn't going to be locked up again.

_Not now, not ever._

Nakao pretends not to have heard me. "Why the hell did you come here?"

I crack my neck. How the heck did he find me here? "This is where my father lives." Nakao's surprise is visible on his face. "My biological father. The one I've been living with...I really don't know who he is." I bite my lip and rub my neck. It hurts. Nakao picks his jaw up the floor.

"What? Were you, like, kidnapped or something?"

I roll my eyes. "My mom married Dr. Kayashima when she was pregnant. I just had a blood test done and, well, yeah." I hope that's enough description for him. I can't find any more words to describe this. Nakao just shakes his head.

"So what does that make you?"

That's a good question.

What _does _that exactly make me?

My mother is dead. The man who has been raising me for seventeen years is not my father. The guy who actually fathered me is a recovering alcoholic with a questionable load of reading material. Where the hell does that put me?

_Nowhere._

"I don't know." I lie.

My existence has thrown the stars and planets of course. I am a blackhole. I was never meant to happen. An accident. I don't deserve to live. I don't even deserve to exist.

"'Shima?" Nakao's worried voice brings me back to reality. I blink.

"Sorry. I'm a little tired. Just zoned out."

Nakao breathes out. "Let's go, 'Shima. Your parents will be so happy you're okay. They think you killed yourself or something." Nakao grabs my hand and attempts to pull me away, but I stay rooted to the spot.

"I'm not leaving."

Nakao turns slowly, agonizingly, around.

"What do you mean? You have to come with with me. Everyone is freaking out." Nakao is making a puppy dog face, one that breaks your heart to hurt. I snatch my hand away.

"I can't go back. You don't understand what those hospitals are like, Nakao!" I steel my heart when a lone tear slips out of Nakao's eye and down his face.

"Kayashima, you're depressed. And not just a little depressed, you're seriously depressed. You cut. You've attempted suicide."

"I wasn't trying to commit suicide!"

"I don't care!" Nakao screams back, tears streaming down his face. He lifts his shaking hands to his face. "We almost lost you. You need serious help. If we don't get you..." He covers his mouth with his hand, turning away from me.

"I don't want to have to bury you, Kayashima. None of us do."

I sit down on the bed so I can breathe. For a second, I can imagine it. A gray stone with my name etched into it. A casket being carried to the grave. Me, being slowly, painstakingly lowered into the ground, soft earth shoveled in over me.

_Does he think I want to put them through that?_

"I'll be fine." I hear myself say. "My biological father will take care of me. I'm safe here." Nakao flashes his eyes at me. I close my eyes and let the icy tears fall. My voice breaks when I speak. "I can't go back to the hospital, Nakao. I just can't. They don't help me. They'll destroy me."

"But you-"

"Don't you think I've wanted to get better?" I scream, jumping to my feet. "In junior high, when I was jumped and beaten and cut and told to go kill myself on a daily basis, you think I didn't want to stop feeling like I was completely worthless?" Nakao huddles into a corner, afraid. _Afraid of me. _I don't _let myself care_. "I tried! I talked to people! I looked on all the websites, read all the books, nothing worked! Even when I hung myself and I was brought to the hospital and they kept me there, I never stopped feeling it." Right then, My adrenaline just crashes. I collapse to the floor. Nakao rushes over to me. I cry.

"I have to do this myself. I have to figure this out for myself. No one can help me. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is."

Nakao nods through his tears. He finally, finally, understands.

"Okay. Okay, I'll...I'll let you stay here. I won't tell anyone you're here."

I nod gratefully. Wipe my eyes. I can't stop the shaking. My body is running on a high.

"Th-thank you Nakao. You have n-n-no idea how much this means to me." Nakao nods, rubbing his eyes. He stands up. I grab the table to pull myself up, but wish I hadn't when Nakao says his next words.

"But I am going to make you call your father and tell him you're okay."

"No." I clutch the table to keep from going down. Blackness crowds my vision. "No, no, no. " Something is crushing my rib cage. I can't breathe. "I can't. He'll make me go back. Please, Nakao."

Nakao bites his lip, but shakes his head. "You have to, 'Shima. He loves you and he thinks you're dead. You can't put him through that."

"Sure I can." I knew I was being heartless. But I didn't care. No-I did. I wanted to be heartless. Show my family I had nothing inside. Give them no reason to want me back. "I've done it before. What's so different about this?"

My heart twitches painfully as I remembered 'before.' Hanging myself in my closet. Imagining my father wandering into my room, calling my name. Wondering where I was. And finding-

I can't imagine what went through his mind that day. There had to be a point-somewhere-where he thought I was dead. A point where he thought I would never open my eyes again. I can't imagine how he felt. Thinking his only child was dead.

A tear slid down my cheekbone, despite my internal protests. I nodded. He was right.

"I don't have my phone." I say, slipping my mask over my emotions. I wouldn't let anything crack this time.

'I'll lend you mine."

* * *

><p>I clutched the blanket around my shoulders even tighter. My breath was coming out in short gasps. I slid down the side of the bed, pressing my back against the mattress. Nakao sat on the chair. I took a deep breath to calm my heart rate. And I dialed the number I had memorized long ago.<p>

One ring. Two. On the third ring, my father picked up.

_"Hello?"_

I breathe. He sounds...tired. My hand twitches, wanting to scratch at my face. I resist. I promised.

_"Hello? Is this about Taiki?" _The sound I realized I had been hearing in the background faded away. He must have went somewhere he could be alone. His voice is frantic. Frightened. _"Is Taiki okay?"_

His voice was breaking. He was scared.

_"Taiki?" _

"I'm here, Dad."

He sighs in relief. A barely suppressed sob of joy escapes from his throat.

_"Thank God. Oh, thank God. You're okay."_

I bite down. Keep my _everything frozen._

_"Where are you, Taiki? Just tell me and I'll come get you. I'll leave right now."_

I swallow. I can't do this. I just can't. I can't kill him again.

_"Taiki? Tell me where you are. Please."_

My father is begging me. His voice quivers and pleads. I shake. I can't say it.

"I'm not coming home, Dad."

_I said it._

_"You have to. Please, Taiki. I need you safe."_

My already icy heart clenches, freezing water filling its chambers.

"I'm safe, Dad. I'll...I'll be okay. I promise."

I hear his breathing over the phone. He's crying. That scares me. Fathers aren't supposed to cry.

_"Taiki. I need you here, with me. I need you here to know you're safe."_

"I'll be fine. I'm safe. I'm not going to hurt myself anymore. I promise."

There's a loud bang on his end. He must have hit something.

_"Dammit, Taiki, I've heard your lies before! You always told me, things will get better! 'I'll stop cutting myself! I'll start taking my anti-depressants! I'll stop thinking about killing myself!' But it's all lies! You lie your way out of going to the hospital, talking to someone, living!" _I listen. I don't breathe._ "I'm not standing for it anymore! You're telling me where you are right now, and I'm going to come get you and take you to the hospital. You need to live."_

An ice crystal falls.

_It's over._

"Goodbye, Dad."

_"No. Wait. I'm sorry. Taiki, please. I love you! Please don't do this agai-"_

_Click._

It's over.

* * *

><p>I don't cry. I don't feel...anything. Nakao leaves. I barely notice.<p>

I killed him. My father will slowly wither away, drift apart from his wife and what little family he had left. He'll become a recluse. He may continue to breathe, but his heart will be dead. Just like mine.

_Just like mine._

Zentaro opens the door, a takeout bag in his hands. He sees me on the ground and stands there, obviously wondering what to do. I nod and raise my hand in greeting.

"I'm fine. Just overwhelmed, that's all."

He tosses the bag onto the table, walking over to me. He offers his hand and pulls me up. I get to my feet and keep my eyes down. He laughs softly.

"You're really short, aren't you?"

I try not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the comment. Of course I was short. I've always been short. Where it came from, I have no idea.

"Well, let's eat. Put some weight on you." He mutters, almost as an afterthought, as he walks over to the fridge and grabs soda for both of us.

We watch TV. Zentaro turns it to a comedy show. I don't laugh. I feel completely numb. Everything inside is frozen, unwilling to move, unwilling to breathe, unwilling to live.

...

_Maybe that means I'm no longer alive._

* * *

><p><em>Crawling in my skin.<em>

_These wounds, they will not heal._

_Fear is how I fall._

_Confusing,_

_Confusing what is real._

* * *

><p><strong>Forgive me for doing super-short chapters (at least for this fic...I think we had like, 5000 words chapters for a while.) But lately with all the work I'm doing, I have a super short attention span for anything, so if I let a chapter sit in my Document Manager (which is where I write everything since I hate Google Docs with a passion and my computer randomly deletes stuff) I'll lose interest in it and it will become like APUSH...a looming hunk of work in the near future. <strong>

**Playlist for this chapter: 'Crawling' by Linkin Park, 'The Bells Of Notre Dame' by Disney (in The Hunchback of Notre Dame-I want to see this movie) 'The Prayer of The Children' by some choir that's amazing (my choir is doing it) 'Poor Unfortunate Souls' Disney again, and some random Christmas songs I randomly felt like listening to in October. Oh, and TMEA 'Wade in da Water' my choir was GOING to sing this, but then my choir director randomly decided not to...I was mad!**

**So I saw my brother (Yay!) and we went to three different movies in one day...scary! Then he went back to the hospital. The doctor said they could probably send him home for good before Halloween...Wah! But I feel kind of selfish thinking that, because he has years of muck to shovel through and he really needs it...but we miss him. And hospitals can't be fun.**

**I have yet more to blabber on about. (I know! Don't you love me?) Well, homework and school still takes up my every waking moment (and more, sometimes) and I still have work but...no show choir. I quit. It was my third year in JV and I was just like...screw this. So yeah. But now I have college to worry about, and this project, I don't even know what it's called, but my English teacher brought it upon me and it's probably going to take the rest of my high school career to complete...I am excited, though. I printed off a million pages for research and I think I killed my printer...it started smoking and now it won't turn on... ME: "No, Dad! I did not use your printer for work! Blame Anya!"**

**Oh, another ramble, COMPLETELY off subject! But in volume 18 of the manga, in chapters 100-102, was no one pissed off that such a Kayashima story existed? It made me embarrassed on Kayashima's part! He was so weird! (And only slightly amusing...at times.) The storyline was completely pointless and whack, there were no good drawings (aside from a few amusing RA shots and one scene with ballerina Dorm 3 (?) that made me laugh.) Modoru Ichijou had potential to be an amusing side character (as he proves to be later) but all I could think about in this was: 'You're fighting with ferrets. You want to kill Kayashima for being more popular than you, and you think defeating him in this one random competition will accomplish that? And are you the only sophmore in Dorm 3 or what?'**

**Oh. I think...I'm done with my rambles! Finally. (By the way, if you read all that, you just wasted your entire life, because that was complete pointless.)**

**Random (and also pointless) Fact: The dot of a i is called a tittle.**


	11. Breaking The Habit

_Memories consume,_

_Like opening the wound,_

_And picking me apart again._

_You all assume_

_I'm safe here in my room._

_Unless I try to start again._

_I don't want to be the one, the battle's always choose._

_Because inside,_

_I realize,_

_That I'm the one confused._

* * *

><p>Freezing is a funny thing. Your blood turns to ice and stops moving. Your heart beats lazily only every once in a while to keep the fire in your head burning. Your organs are buried under a snowstorm and left to slowly decay.<p>

But no one ever notices the winter storm lighting up your eyes. No one cares that an ice coat is forming over your skin. No one sees the black flames lick their way around your brain and wrap around your mouth _so you can't scream_

Well. No one cares enough to.

I've frozen over before. This time is no different. My body stops responding. My heart slows down, the white-hot pain in my head grows colder and hurts even more. But I feel oddly detached. Like I'm watching it all from somewhere else.

_...is this what dying feels like?_

Zentaro doesn't notice that I'm dying. If I think about it, I can't really blame him. Whenever I look down to try to find the bleeding would I'm sure is there or the blackened flesh from where I know I've frozen over, all I find is pale, unblemished skin. Nothing is killing me.

I'm dying from the _inside out._

Life goes on. Night sneaks up behind me. Soon Zentaro tells me to go to sleep and insists on giving me the bed while he sleeps on the sofa, despite my protests.

I'd like to think my father and Miyako are getting ready for bed themselves, at home in their shared bedroom in that big, empty house. But my father will probably stay up all night. Miyako will most likely try to hide her own emotions and focus on calming my father down, but eventually she'll give up and break down too.

Nakatsu will go to sleep in our empty, silent dorm room. Unless Nakao decides to sleep there again. How does Nakao feel about all this? He knows where I am. Does he feel happy I'm okay? Ashamed he didn't drag me back? Guilty because everyone else is scrambling to find me?

I bury my face in the pillow and try not to breathe. If no oxygen gets to my brain, _I can't think._

My lungs expand and detract, despite the fact that they're encased in ice. I give up and roll over onto my back.

My mother still isn't here. I think she's left for good. Has she moved on? Is this why she became a ghost in the first place, to make sure I eventually found my real father? Then why did she go to Dr. Kayashima, telling him she was pregnant with his child, in the first place? Zentaro was right. Dr. Kayashima provided for me much better than he ever could. He might have still been an alcoholic. He wouldn't have been able to send me to Osaka or anything. He might have even beat me after my mother died.

My head swims with questions I will never find the answers to. The only woman who knows the answers is six feet under and isn't interested in talking.

I just want to know where I am in the universe. Is the reason my mother wanted me here because...I'd fit in? Would the kids at some dinky public middle school be kinder-or at least, less violent-towards the ghost thing than the kids at private school? I might not have gotten jumped so many times. I might not have been tied up, beaten, cut, ridiculed _until I finally snapped._

I would have never met Ryoto, that's for sure. Never been betrayed.

My mind wanders back to the crates filled with books. Why, exactly, did Zentaro have them? Did I-God help me for thinking this-inherit my 'gift' from him? Does he have a random obsession with the paranormal? Or was my first thought right, and he's known who I was and what I was for years?

My head hurts. I don't want to think.

I stare out the window. Is that the same moon that hung over me at Osaka? The same one at home?

* * *

><p>I never heard from Ryoto after I tried to kill myself. Of course, only immediate family was allowed to visit me in the hospital, but a phone call or letter or anything...it would have been nice. It might have even saved me from this.<p>

But he never made any move to apologize. Never.

I guess he just didn't feel responsible.

I spent my time ignoring the doctors. I couldn't talk, why were they making me go through this? They filled my head with words and spat out labels to pin to my forehead. Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Depression. Schizophrenia. They tacked the words onto me like there was something wrong with it.

Schizophrenia. I looked it up, because they'd been calling me that for years and I still didn't know what it meant. It basically means you can't think straight. Don't ask me how it got from that to seeing dead people. The website said that the crazies diagnosed with it (like me) have tendencies to 'hallucinate' or whatever.

I don't hallucinate. I've always been able to see ghosts. Ever since I was a baby. And ever since. They're there. They're real.

Why am I the _only one_ that can see?

Forget 'abilities.' This was a curse. If I hadn't been cursed, I would have been able to make normal friends. They wouldn't have betrayed me like Ryoto did. And I wouldn't have had to hurt them, like I did Noe and Nakao.

I wish I never had these abilities. No-I wish I had never been born. Look at all the misery I brought those around. I killed my mother. My father spends his time worrying over his dead son. And Zentaro...I don't even know. I just walked in here and fucked up his life. He probably wishes I had never existed either.

I stifle a sigh. I brought nothing but pain and death to everyone around me. Why am I still here? Why do I allow myself to live?

_'Then end it. You don't deserve to live.'_

I don't banish the voice who creeps into my head.

But I promised. I promised I would be okay. I promised the cutting would stop. I promised I wouldn't hurt myself.

_'You don't have to do anything. Things happen. Could be someone else's fault. Or nobody's-an accident. Who could an accident hurt?'_

Everyone.

I would be the only one dead, if it was done right. No one else had to get hurt. A broken windshield or scratched paintjob might come with it, but it was all repairable. Replaceable.

_Unlike me._

I would hurt those around me. My father would be forced to pick out a coffin, choose what to carve onto the headstone. He would have to watch as they laid me down and covered me with dirt. He'd feel obligated to visit my grave. It would kill him.

Just like it did me.

And what about my friends? My real friends, the ones I made at Osaka? Nakatsu would be heartbroken. Scarred for life. I know he'd probably stand there and talk about what a great roommate I was at my funeral. I bite my lip.

_I was a terrible roommate, Nakatsu._

Nakao would be sad, but he'd get over it. Might be a little emotionally damaged, thinking he could have stopped me. Maybe I should leave a note. Tell him there was no way he could have changed this. Noe probably wouldn't care, might feel a little afraid I'd come back to haunt him. I couldn't imagine Sekime would feel much. A little grief, maybe. But I wasn't close to him. I really wasn't close to anything. I didn't like to let anyone in.

I half-hoped no one would find out Ashiya was a girl. She worked hard. She was a good person, if not the brightest. And Sano...Sano would take care of his friends. I could count on that, at least.

I wonder if Ryoto would even bother to come. Watch them bury me. Would he think about how he put me there? How he practically dug my grave, and locked me in my icy coffin? Or would he just shrug and say I did it to myself?

_I'm overthinking this._

I remember. He probably wouldn't come. He won't even care.

* * *

><p>I remember I promised not to hurt myself. No demon can make me believe I can make death happen without violating that.<p>

I take a deep breath and lay back on the pillows.

I don't know why I tell myself not to think about death. Death is who I am. I'm cursed with being Dead even when I'm alive. No one can change it. I'm Taiki 'Ghost Boy' Kayashima. I'm just the ghost who can't fully die.

But I do have to stop thinking about this. I promised. I told Zentaro I would stop. I told Dr. Kayashima. I told my friends. I had to.

_Or else._

I shiver, despite the fact I am cuddled under the covers. My mind keeps wandering backwards.

After I-finally-got out to the prison, my parents all but kept me under lock and key. The medications made my head so heavy I could barely lift it to check the time I woke up in the afternoon. I slept all the time. A couple of times I convinced Miyako I didn't need the particular pill that tied bricks to my head. A couple of times she nodded and I thought she understood I needed to get out of bed every once in a while. Then usually my father would get paranoid and force me to take it to calm his frazzled nerves.

I wanted to go outside. I liked outside. I liked the sun, the grass, the sky... Dr. Kayashima didn't like me outside. At least, not then. Outside was where cars were. Where lakes and drugs and trees were. Where bad guys were, the ones who'd want me dead. The ones who would be scared enough to finish the job themselves.

After they told my parents that I hadn't successfully hung myself, the doctors checked out my other injuries. The ones inflicted by my classmates.

It was bad. Blood loss from where they slashed me with a knife. Dislocated wrist from how they tied me up. Twisted ankle, not really sure how that was obtained. A concussion, I don't know the specifics but it's kinda obvious how it was obtained. A broken rib. They told them if I hadn't tried to kill myself the rib probably would have punctured my lung, might have even killed me.

It made me want to laugh. In trying to kill myself, I might have saved my life. And they call me crazy.

After I was done with surgery and they let Dr. Kayashima and his wife in for the first time, I pretended to be asleep. After they were done crying all over me, Miyako stayed sitting on the chair, holding my hand. My father stood above me, stroking my hair and stealing nervous glances towards the door, as if someone might come in and try again. I guess he thought he was protecting me.

That was nice of him, I guess.

* * *

><p>Morning came, and all too soon I had to pretend to wake up because the sun had risen and Zentaro told me the shower was all mine. I don't bother to tell him I'm a shower at night kind of person.<p>

When I come back, he has his phone is in hands.

"Shit." He says when he sees me. He gets up and walks over to his coat and shoves the phone in the pockets. "Your family's called you in missing."

My heart stops. "What?"

"No use worrying about it now." He walks over to the fridge and busies himself making breakfast. "Just don't leave the room today. They can't file a missing person's report until you've been missing two days."

I sit down, trying to breathe. "What about after that? The hospital has my medical record of the DNA test. This is one of the first places they'll look."

I just made it up. Part of me just wanted him to tell me I should leave. This was uncomfortable. But I guess he didn't think so.

"We'll just have to leave Tokyo. I can get a job someplace else. It's not a big deal."

I bite my lip. "Moving is big deal. I don't want you to get in trouble because of me."

He waves his hand. "Don't worry about that. Like I said, plenty of jobs. It was getting time to move on anyways."

I don't say anything. What could I say?

* * *

><p>We spend most of the morning watching TV. He says he'll pack up the car tonight and we'll leave before sunrise tomorrow morning.<p>

I don't protest, even though I'm scared. I didn't think I'd have to stay with him very long. Just go long enough without cutting to prove to everyone I didn't need to go to the hospital to feel better. Scare my father into listening to what I had to say. A couple of weeks, at the most. Then I'd go back to Osaka High. My brain felt numb from not going to school.

I don't want to leave Tokyo. I have no idea where Zentaro is planning on going.

I push it all to the back of my mind. A little after noon, he announces he has to go into town for work and to get myself some dinner. I wave awkwardly as he walks out the door.

Neither of us really knows how to act around each other.

I wait fifteen minutes after Zentaro leaves. I don't know if he's one of those people who gets into their car and forgets some important item and can't leave without it. Miyako is one of those people. Made life unnecessarily difficult.

When I'm sure he's gone, I go back to the crates. I feel bad about pawing through Zentaro's things, but it might give me a link to the past. My past.

I dig out the first crate I can and set it on the floor. I leave the TV on, the place is creepy enough with it off. Plus, it seems normal. I sit down beside the crate and start going through the books.

Ghosts. Demons. Ubume. Psychics. Same thing. Over and over and over again.

The fact that he owns the equivilent of half a library doesn't really surprise me. I mean, I didn't really expect it, but I've never met him before so I don't know anything. I turn the pages, trying to find some clues to their existence. My heart shudders and dies.

_'You never know what a person is capable until they're pushed to the edge.'_

I don't know why I'm thinking this. But it's what echoes in my frozen skull when I look down at the worn page

Underlining. Highlighting. Little notes made in the margin. My name. _Taiki._ Written everywhere. Sometimes with question marks. Sometimes without.

I look through the rest. They're all like this. I rip through the rest of the crates. Every single one is like this. _Every single one._

My heart beats fast. The ice sets into my head. I can't crack through the freeze. I can't think.

_I can't think._

I fade out again. Tearing through the pages. Hours pass. Years. Centuries. Maybe seconds. I don't know. I'm not paying attention.

_He knew. _He knew who I was for years. How? Did he just think 'maybe' because I was Asami's son? Or did he have a reason to think so? Either way, why didn't he come forward about it? Obviously I mattered somewhat to him. Or he wouldn't go to these lengths to figure out what I am.

_'What you were.'_

I shiver.

The door swings open. I blink, then realize the sun has set without me noticing. Zentaro walks into the room before realizing his books are strewn across the floor. His eyes dart up, accusing me. Panic sets in across his face.

"Where did you get those?"

His voice is barely audible, yet conveys everything I need to hear.

_'He's going to finish you.'_

I ignore the voice in my head the best I can.

"I thought you didn't know who I was until I came here." I say, picking up the nearest book. The letters wave in front of my face. I can't read them. The world tilts on its side. "What did you do? Follow my mother around the entire nine months she was pregnant? Come after me, once she'd been buried?" I get up. My legs quake under my body. "You've known about me since I was born."

My world flips upside down, then turns red. I blink and it's back to normal, except no color. I grip the side of the bed to keep from toppling over. Zentaro rushes over and pushes me onto the bed.

"No...no. I didn't know...I didn't find out until..."

He walks away. Goes to his desk. Rummages through the drawers. Then grabs a large, brown envelope.

"Your aunt...your aunt knew you were mine. She contacted me when you were about two years old. Begged me to sue for custody." He smiles sadly as he hands me the letter in question. I smooth it out against my knee. The letter is hastily written in black pen, parchment old and worn.

I recognize Chihara's writing right away. She runs down a quick summary of how my mother died and why she thinks he's my father and lists a million reasons why Dr. Kayashima can't take care of me. I get to the last few sentences, where my blood runs cold.

_"Taiki can see his mother. I know women who die in childbirth often come back a Ubume, but this isn't it. When he draws pictures, he draws people who were dead long before he was born. He always draws this halo of color around everyone. He calls them their 'waterfall colors.' His grandmother says he's just seeing 'auras.' Idiots!_

_"Kenchiro is in denial. He claims Taiki is just a child and he'll grow out of it. I know you wouldn't stand for this if Asami had decided to put your name on the birth certificate. This child is possessed. My parents tell me to stay out of it. As the sister of his deceased mother, I have no legal right to Taiki if Kenchiro is so determined to believe the little demon is normal._

_"Taiki is only two years old. If we act now, he won't even remember Kenchiro, and I doubt Kenchiro will care about him once the blood tests show him Taiki is not biologically related to him."_

I drop the paper. I close my eyes so I can breathe. Icy vines wrap around my chest and prevent them from expanding. I want to choke, but something won't let me.

"You knew." I say when I can open my eyes again. "You've known who I was for the past fifteen years. And you didn't care?"

'Of course I cared." He stares off into the distance. I guess he can see when he's not looking at me. "Kenchiro...Kenchiro and I were casual friends during college. Of course, I dropped out fairly early, but we still got together sometimes, mostly to drink." He half smiles. Laughs a bit. "I'm the one who introduced him and Asami. She never even admitted they had done anything until she found out she was pregnant with you." He shakes his head. "She left me that day. Just packed up her things and walked out the door."

"So you were pissed off at Dr. Kayashima? Or did I remind you too much of my mother?" I stand up. "Fine. I'll be out of your hair then. Bye."

I start to walk away, out the door, out of his life. But he grabs my shoulder and spins me back around.

"No! No. Taiki, you have to understand, I was a mess after your mother left. I didn't just stop drinking. I've screwed up so many times." He shakes his head. "I was in no condition to be raising a child, much less one who...who saw dead people." He expels a shaky breath, eyes closed so he doesn't have to see me.

"You could have done something. At least tried to get in contact with me."

Why am I still here? He had to have known about what happened. _And he did nothing._

"Taiki, you were two years old before I ever knew you existed. You had a family by then. I couldn't tear you away from that."

"Just Dr. Kayashima. And look how that worked out."

I turn around. I can't look at him anymore. He touches my shoulder. I yank away.

"Kenchiro loved you. He was sober. Had money, had a great job."

I bite my tongue and don't mention that my father's job caused him to be away from home all the time, _and gave me the opportunity to cut._

My mouth stays wired shut.

"I couldn't take you away from that." He continues, oblivious to the fact my ears have iced over. "I would never had the money to support you. I would have abused you. I would still be drinking." He uses his fingers to brush the strands of black hair out of his face. "But...I had to learn more about this...this seeing ghosts. I had to know what you were."

I turn away. His hand ghosts over my cheek.

"I only did what I thought was best for you."

I don't answer. He takes me gently by the hand.

"It's late. Just...let's sleep. We'll leave in the morning."

As we get ready for bed, his words echo in my mind.

_"Only did what I thought was best for you."_

I grit my teeth.

_"Best for you."_

I brace myself against the demon, but this time, it's my own voice.

_No. You did what you thought was best for yourself._

* * *

><p>I wait until Zentaro falls asleep. This isn't easy, because he's clearly waiting until he's sure I'm asleep. What he's afraid of, I'm not sure.<p>

When his breathing steadies, I slip out of bed. I tiptoe my way to the bathroom. Everyone gets up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, right? Nothing suspicious about that.

I lock the door and count to one hundred, then count backwards. When I'm sure Zentaro isn't going to come in looking for me, I walk over to the cabinet.

A package of neat razors is nestled inside. I pick one up; carefully, so I don't disturb Zentaro with the rustle of the plastic; roll back my sleeve, and inscribe three lines, _hush hush hush._

_Hush. _They can't know I'm doing this. No cutting, Taiki. They all tell me no cutting. No thinking about killing yourself. No overdosing on pills just so you don't have to think. _No, no, no! _Treat yourself with respect. No cutting. No hurting yourself.

_Hush. _No one tells me who I really am. Everyone around me knows it. My aunt knew. Zentaro did. My mother must know everything, now that she's a ghost. Hell, even Dr. Kayashima must have figured it out at some point. But no one ever thought it was important for me to know. Because my place shouldn't exist. _I _shouldn't exist.

_Hush. _And then there's that. The ghosts. That's who I am, right? Ghost Boy. Walking Dead. _'Don't tell them we're here, Taiki. Let us destroy. Because you're just unfortunate enough to be tied to the dead while you're still alive.'_

I shake my head.

_I've never been alive._

I get up, bloody razor falling to the floor. My hands find their way to the medicine cabinet. I grab the first bottle I see. I don't check the label.

I turn the light off in the bathroom. Quietly, I find my jeans on the floor and slip off the sweatpants Zentaro loaned me until we could find someplace to buy me some new clothes. I bring them up to my waist and button them up.

I stop at the doorway. I close the door partially behind me, the light from the hallway spilling into the dim room. I can make out the outline of Zentaro, fast asleep on the couch. The books are still strewn about the floor.

I feel like I should say something to him. But what? Thank you? Thank you for what? For letting me stay here for two days while I made up my mind? For giving me life?

_"Get going." _The voice inside me urges. _"You're almost to the end."_

I don't respond.

"I'm sorry." I whisper to everyone and no one in particular.

As I walk out into the snowy, frosty air, my head explodes with possibilities.

Where to do this? The big bottle of pills in my pocket would be the obvious choice. Swallow them all and my heart would just stop. Nothing messy about that. They'd have to do an autopsy, though. Determine the exact cause of death. And I didn't want everyone to know I did it. I hoped it looked like an accident.

I could just lay down and go to sleep. Find a nice, secluded spot, take my clothes off, instant hypothermia. Heart failure. Death. It would be fast. Painless. They could have an open casket funeral, if they wanted to.

Though I don't know where I'm headed. The ground or the flames? Personally, I'd prefer to be cremated and have my ashes spread at Osaka. I loved it there.

My heart pangs when it remembers who I'm leaving behind. My friends. My family. I bow my head.

_I'm sorry. _I wish I could talk to them, see them, one last time. _But I just can't go on. I hope you understand._

My feet stop. The demon inside gives off a hoot of laughter.

I'm on a bridge. The railing is low. It would be easy to climb up, jump off the other side

_Over._

It's perfect, really. The cold coming off the icy waters would freeze my head before the fear of drowning set in. It would be painless on my part. And there was a good chance no one would ever find me. Bodies decomposed fast in the water, and the currents would make looking for me hard. And even if they did find me, so what? I fell. Got pushed in. Jumped. Who cared?

I would be dead. My duty was done. It was over.

_"There we go. It'll all be over soon, Little Taiki. Just get it over with."_

I don't breathe. Quietly, I plant one foot on the asphalt and swing my other leg up onto the railing. I sit there for a moment, gazing down at the icy water below me.

I cry.

_I can't do it. I can't do this to everyone._

My demons hiss and beat me from the inside.

_"Just do it! Get it done. Then all your pain and suffering will be over. You'll be done. Don't you understand that?"_

I do. I return my feet to the asphalt.

_"Coward! You think you're so special, talking to dead people! When you're not even brave enough to join us!"_

I breathe. I can do this. I can live.

_Can't I?_

Then I see it. The bright headlights approaching from the north. A semi-truck. Big. Would never be able to stop in time. The demon smiles. My feet move, despite my protests.

_"Fine. If you're too scared to do it yourself, just wait here and let it happen."_

"No.." I say, out loud, as of anyone can hear me. _Please hear me. _I keep my eyes closed as my feet take me to the middle of the lane. Directly into the truck's path.

_This is it. I'm going to die. _I realize, finally. _Nakatsu, I'm sorry I wasn't a better roommate. Nakao, I'm sorry I yelled at you so much. Sano, Mizuki, Noe, Sekime, Nanba, Himejima...I'm just sorry. For everything. _My heart pangs, possibly for the last time. _Dad, Miyako, I'm sorry I was such a terrible son. Mom, I'm sorry I'm going to join you now. I know you wanted me to live. I'm sorry I never did._

With one icy tear rolling down my cheek, I open my eyes and watch my tombstone flash it's lights at me and see Death drawing close enough to kiss.

* * *

><p><em>Fallen angels at my feet,<em>

_Whispered voices at my ear._

_Death before my eyes,_

_Lying next to me I fear._

_She beckons me,_

_Shall I give in?_

_Upon my end,_

_Shall I begin?_

_Forsaking all I've fallen for,_

_I rise to meet the end._

* * *

><p><strong>Huh. I think I was at 2150 words before I included any actual dialogue. My Kayashima ramble skills=pwn.<strong>

**They really WERE rambles. They served absolutely no purpose. They WERE, in the original chapter map, somewhere in my head. Actually, in the original plot I had set out for this, Zentaro served a purpose. Now I'm just like...'why do I have him in here?'**

**'My stepbrother, Z, who happened to be reading this.' "Chi, what the hell? Where did HE come from?"**

**Umm...yeah. He was essential to the original plot. But that plot sucked, so I trashed it. Umm...so now what?**

**I originally started writing this to get into my brother's head and try to understand him, while at the same time I love Kayashima and I was surprised no one has written anything like this on here. I just had to wonder how seeing dead people would psychologically affect a teenage boy. But really, Kayashima has really developed his own character for me and he's not really Hana Kimi's Kayashima, he's...his own person now. It's weird. That's only happened to me once before, and I was writing a comedy. **

**I was stuck writing this chapter. 'Knights Of Cyndonia' saved it. Go listen. Oh, and also, there will probably be two more chapters. So that brings the grand total up to...13 chapters. DID NOT plan that. But so, so awesome.**

**I feel like most of this chapter is total shit...but you know, I had to take a three hour test today, followed by a sales pitch from colleges, then I had to watch my stepsister's volleyball game. (You lost, Anya! Nice spike, though!) I really don't care about anything. I just really want to go to bed now.**

**This is a lon****g A/N, but I am about to make it longer. Well, actually, I am going to put in a funny story my friend Beth and I wrote in English (We are studying Adj/Adv clauses..be warned.) because I feel depressed now and I like my readers to be happy. So here goes.**

The Transvestite Weatherman

Before even reading the forecast, the nervous weatherman, who was wearing a sparkly purple shirt embroided with hot pink light bulbs, predicted it would rain shampoo. However, the hive was supposed to experience sunny weather and the occasional fish maelstrom, so the camera man ran after the weatherman. The weather man was very scared, as the camera man was a retired mucha lucha. So he ran into a bathroom. The camera man tried to catch him, but the weather man had much experience running into bathrooms, so the weather man escaped by jumping out the window. He started running, then realized he was still wearing his banana stiletto pumps, and forcefully threw them to the ice cream truck. The lucha decided he wanted ice cream, and bought a popsicle. The weather man ran to Peru. The End!

**Happy two months and a day since I published this! Feel free to review! It makes me feel happy!**


	12. In The End

_One thing, I don't know why_

_It doesn't even matter how hard you try, keep that in mind._

_I designed this rhyme, to explain in due time_

_I tried so hard._

_In spite of the way you were mocking me,_

_Acting like I was part of your property,_

_Remembering all the times that you fought with me,_

_I'm surprised it got so far._

_Things aren't the way they were before._

_You wouldn't even recognize me anymore._

_Not that you even knew me back then._

_But it all comes back to me_

_In the end._

* * *

><p><em>Screech.<em>

Though I kept my eyes open so I could have the satisfaction of meeting Death's eye, I'm unsure of what happens next.

It fits together perfectly in my head. The poor driver would slam on his brakes as soon as he saw me standing in the street. He would never be able to stop in time. He'd slam into me. I'd go flying back, because I've forgotten how to breath again and gravity never forgets, my body would crumple and my skull would hit-

the unforgiving pavement

_Crack._

Done.

But that doesn't happen. The brakes start to screech long before the point of no return. The driver lays on his horn.

I get out of the way.

I don't know how I did it. I was resigned to death. Knew it was going to happen. But I still found the strength to get out of it's way.

_I lived._

My breath comes out in short, puffy gasps. I can't see straight. But I'm still here. I survived.

My demon lets out a howl of rage.

The driver comes to a complete stop. He disembarks the truck and turns around to look at me.

"Hey...kid." He raises one hand out, as if he was testing whether I'd bite or not. He blinks a couple times, then readjusts his glasses. "Taiki? Is that you?"

Crap. I know him. It's Ryoto's brother, Riki. He's always been fairly nice to me, but...

_I don't trust Ryoto._

"Shit! I can't believe it. Ryoto told me your parents sent you to boarding school. I thought..." He trails off, unsure of what to say next. I wave my hand.

"I'm just home for break. Sorry about practically dive-bombing your trunk. I think I drank something weird back at my friend's." I lie. I didn't want him going back to Ryoto and telling him I stood directly in the path of his truck. Luckily, he sees to buy it. He rolls his eyes.

"I'm sorry for almost hitting you! I never saw you there!" He laughs a bit. "Hey, do you need a ride home? It's been a couple years, but I think I remember where you live."

My heart leaps. _Yes._ "That would be awesome, actually. Thank you."

He waits until I get in before he goes around and slides into the driver's seat. We drive for a bit, in silence. My demons protest my choice, but I couldn't be more grateful.

_Home. _I was stupid for ever running away. I needed to get help. _Real _help. Or I'd end up dead.

I'd go home. Wake my parents up. I knew it was like, one in the morning, but I knew they'd probably be grateful I was back in one piece. They'd drive me to the hospital. And the doctors would tie me down and weigh my brain down with pills.

It won't be fun. I know that. But if I want to live-really live-I was going to need to make sacrifices. They'd have to let me out eventually, right?

_Right?_

"Hey." Riki's voice brings me out of my internal battle. His eyes are trained to the road, but he reaches over to touch my finger. I look over. "Look, I know what Ryoto did to you, and what you did...afterwards..."

"It's okay, Riki." I blurt, uncomfortable. "It's fine. It doesn't matter anymore. I get it."

_Though I got nothing._

"It does matter." He whispers. "He's wasting away because of it. Ryoto...Ryoto never meant for it to get to that point. He told me how everyone was afraid of you, and he was just trying to fit in..."

"Right. That's a good reason for beating someone up and telling them to cut themselves."

He swallows. I can hear it.

"He knows now that he was wrong. He really regrets it now."

"Uh-huh." I know I'm being a jerk. Especially considering Riki is giving me a ride home. But I just ran away, tried to kill myself-twice-and found out everyone has been lying to me about my existence in one night. I'm feeling almost high right now. Besides, Riki thinks I've been drinking. Let him think it's the alcohol talking.

"You don't understand." He rushes to explain away. "After you...after you..."

"After I tried to kill myself." I say bluntly, ignoring his flinch. "It's okay. You can admit it. I'm not ashamed of it."

"You don't understand how Ryoto felt." He says quietly. "They announced it in class the next day, and Ryoto went home. Wouldn't come out of his room for hours. He felt terrible."

"Why didn't he ever just apologize?" I whisper. Tears threaten to fall. I ignore it. "I would have forgiven him if he did."

He taps the steering wheel, eyes trained forward.

"He called." He says, much to my surprise. "He called about a week after what happened."

A week. I was in the mental hospital then. Doctors had cracked open my skull and were peering into the frozen cracks with flashlights. Why would he call then? Why would he call at all?

_He didn't care._

"I overheard him talking on the kitchen phone." He continues, rushing on to make up for lost time. "He asked your father how you were. According to him, your father told him if he had any decency at all he would go to hell and not bother you anymore, but he obviously doesn't if he did something like that in the first place."

I bite my lip. I can't imagine Dr. Kayashima vouching for me. Though it does sound like something he would say.

"Are you sure it wasn't my stepmother? She can be vicious when she's emotionally stressed."

This is true. When I got back from the hospital, she was almost constantly mad at my father for something. Never angry with me, of course. They were both too grateful to have me alive to be mad at me.

Riki keeps his eyes focused on the road. "Yeah. It was your dad."

It's silent for a while. It takes too little and a long time until he pulls up in front of the two-story Western style home. Even in the dark, I can tell the white paint is peeling. Snow covers the walkway. If it wasn't the dead of winter right now, the lawn would be overgrown. My parents got lazy after I tried to kill myself. Or maybe they're just always tired. Like me.

"Well, um...thanks for the ride." I reach over to open the door, but I stop when he doesn't say anything.

"Something wrong, Riki?"

He laughs softly to himself, but doesn't smile.

"He's sorry. He still says it, whenever he thinks of you. He says he's so sorry."

* * *

><p>My thought process follows no particular order. My head is full of jumbled ice shards and broken glass. I shouldn't be able to move. I shouldn't be able to think. But unfortunately, I do.<p>

_'He's sorry.' _Ha. Why would Ryoto be sorry? _'He was just trying to fit in. All the other kids were afraid of you.' _He got what he wanted, didn't he? Made lots of friends by selling out my secrets, telling them when I'd be alone so they could beat me, _ruining _me. Won over lots of people who hated me. Probably still friends with them now, halfway through high school.

_'Sorry.'_

Would they really still be his friends? After he drove me to the point where I tried to do the unthinkable, go over that last jump, kill myself, would they have just shrugged and moved on with their lives, with Ryoto? Or would they have turned against him, blaming him for what I did?

_Sorry._

If that's the case, then is he sorry because he hurt me? Or sorry because it hurt him in the end?

_Done._

At the prison, the doctors asked me how I 'decided' to die. How does one want to die? No one besides me can imagine it. And no one really knows what really happens when you reach the Final Exit, not even I do. I don't know what happens when you Pass On. It's the one thing no one has ever come back from. You can't just wander into it and take it back when you decide you don't like it. It's final. Done.

They wanted to know why I would think about it. Why I would try.

Why?

Live your entire life seeing dead people. See what people can do to one another, see what happens to all of us, eventually.

Watch as everyone's layers are peeled away, leaving their auras, their truths, to light. See who people really are. See how terrible they can truly be.

Listenlistenlisten to everyone whispertellscream you're a demon/failure/murderer/bastard. Listen to them tell you that you need to change who you are/stop seeing ghosts/stop cutting yourself/stopstopstop.

Listen to the rumors that curl inside your head at night. _stupid/loser/emo/cutter/poser/fake/**freak**_- it's all true. Listen to them tell you they don't want you here, so go haunt someone else. Listen to them tell you to go kill yourself, because no one here cares. Not. One.

Cut and starve and freeze and burn because it's easier than continuing to draw breath. Cut and starve and freeze and burn because you don't want to feel any of this, and it's an anesthetic and it works, but then the anesthetic turns into poison and seeps into your veins, and you can't stop now, because you're addicted, and it's killing you.

Find someone. Find someone who seems to be a rock you can cling to. A light at the end of the tunnel. Someone you can tell everything to and they'll listen and you think you can trust them

Watch the turn their back on you.

Watch them betray you and kick you while you're already down.

Watch them _kill you._

'Why' is not the question.

A better question would be 'why not?'

* * *

><p><em>It starts with one.<em>

_One thing, I don't know why_

_It doesn't even matter how hard you try, keep that in mind._

_I designed this rhyme to explain in due time_

_All I know._

_Time is a valuable thing._

_Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings._

_Watch it count down to the end of the day._

_The clock ticks life away_

_It's so unreal._

_Didn't look out below._

_Watched the time go out the window._

_Trying to hold on, but didn't even know._

_Wasted it all just to watch you go._

* * *

><p>Snow and ice crunches beneath my feet. I make my way up the frozen steps, careful not to slip on the ice. I try the front door; it's unlocked. I smile. I knew they wouldn't lock me out.<p>

I slowlyquietlysilently shut the door with a _click_. I hold my breath. No one has heard me. The wide carpeted staircase is the only thing that I see.

That and my mother.

She's come back.

_Shit._

She's in the living room. Staring quietly out the window, at the falling snowflakes. She knows I'm here, but she doesn't turn to face me. Tears fall down her face.

_Did she want me to stay with Zentaro?_

Hikari, my cat, walks up to me, her blue eyes glowing in the dark. She rubs up against my leg, happy to see me. I bend down and scratch her neck. She purrs.

Suddenly, Hikari darts away when my mother vanishes. I sigh. Time to face the facts.

I tiptoe up the staircase, careful not to step on the steps that creak. Careful not to bang into the hideous green vase Miyako insisted on buying. I've lived in this house since birth. I know where everything is.

I'm so tired. Maybe I should just go to sleep in my own bed. Let my father and Miyako find me in the morning and drive me to the hospital then. I just want to sleep.

My parents room is at the end of the hall. Light spills out under the door. It's almost two in the morning, but they're both still up.

I walk into my own room and turn on the light.

The last time I was in this room was when everyone in my dorm was sent home over summer break. It's more or less the same. Same light blue walls. Same candles placed strategically throughout the room. Same posters of trees and water tacked onto my walls.

My books are neatly arranged in my four bookshelves, ominous names written upon their spines. A few of my Sanskrit texts are piled on the window sill. My camera is still sitting on the shelf.

Two things are different. One, my dad's work computer is set up at my desk, where my computer sat when I was home. A purple folder with a name sticker lays on top of it. Second, my bed is not neatly made, like I left it. Someone has been sleeping there.

I cross the room and pick the folder up. TAIKI KAYASHIMA is printed on top, along with my birthdate and the hospital logo. Inside, there are pages and pages of diagnosis. Reports about my behavior. Website print-outs. Lots of them. They have the Bad Words written across them. Schizophrenia. Depression. OCD. My labels. He's underlined and highlighted. Trying to separate what's important.

There's another official-looking piece of paper. One a lot like the one I found at my aunt's.

_I thought maybe..._

I pick it up with shaking hands. Sure enough, they sent him one too. Did they have to do that? Or did Aunt Chihara arrange that so he'd get the message as well?

Whatever the case, he has the results of the DNA test. The real results. I scan the scientific mumbo jumbo.

RESULTS INCONCLUSIVE AT THIS POINT IN TIME.

Damn you, Chihara.

* * *

><p>I creep down the hallway. My dad has a right to see me. Nakao was right. He probably assumes I'm dead, phone call or not. I put my ear up to the door and my blood runs cold.<p>

"We'll find him, Kenchiro. Come to bed. The police will start looking for him tomorrow. He's going to be fine."

I try not to gasp at what I hear next. My father is crying.

"He tried to kill himself. I have no idea where he is now. He might be hurting himself. Or someone else is. I don't know."

My father sobs. I tense when I hear the unnatural sound. Hikari comes over to rub my leg again. She meows.

"Did you hear anything in the background when he called? Any people? Animals?"

"No. Nothing at all." My father takes a sharp breath. "Just said 'I'm safe' and hung up. What does safe mean? He's not going to hurt himself anymore? Or he's just not going to kill himself?"

Hikari's meowing gets louder. She scratches at the door. My heart stops when I hear "For goodness sake, Kenchiro, let the poor cat in."

I duck into the closest room I see; my father's study. I shut the door quietly while he opens the door to his room and lets Hikari in. I hear Miyako through the wall. "There's a good kitty. Come up here. You miss Taiki, don't you?"

I wait until my father's footsteps fade away before turning the light on.

The room is in disarray. Papers are heaped everywhere. The picture of him and my mother, alive and pregnant with me, is sitting out on his desk once again. Empty soda cans are deposited around the room. He hasn't cleaned since Umeda called with the news.

I turn my attention to the desk. His work computer is not there. Of course it's not. He's been working in my room, whenever he can. I'm about to turn away when something catches my eye.

I'm not supposed to know my dad keeps a gun in the top drawer, to 'protect his family.' I'm not supposed to know it's always loaded with bullets just in case of an 'emergency.' I'm definitely not supposed to know how to cock the gun and aim it.

_No._

I can't help it. My mind goes There.

* * *

><p>No.<p>

_Yes._

* * *

><p>Slowly, I walk across the room. The drawer slides out, pulled by a phantom even I cannot see. The gun still sits there. Beautifully.<p>

With shaking hands, I pick it up. It's heavy in my hands. Cold. Like death.

I look into the window. It's so dark outside, I can see my reflection.

I cock the gun. Think about the incredible power I hold in this piece of metal. One twitch of my pointer finger and I can end someone's life. Or my own. I hold Death in my hands. Somehow, the idea gives me no comfort. No feeling of power. I feel as helpless as I did that spring day, tied to a fence while a couple of kids beat me up for no good reason other than I could see what was right in front of their eyes.

I put the gun in my mouth.

_Pull the trigger and it ends._

My demons aren't speaking. It's all me.

I can almost taste the bullet with the tip of my tongue. It tastes disgusting.

I don't want to swallow a bullet. I take it out.

_No. This is perfect. It'll be over fast. You won't even have to feel a thing._

I can't let my father and Miyako wake up to the terror of hearing the gunshot, running in to find-

_No._

I have to do this.

I jam the gun under my chin. Immediately, I can tell it's all wrong. It feels like I'm being held hostage.

If I die, I want it to be by my own hand.

My eyes close as I bring the gun up to my head. I press the barrel against my temple. Finger on the trigger, I close my eyes.

_BAM._

_Easy as that. Just pull the trigger. Pull the trigger and a bullet will rip through your skull at a million miles per hour. Pull the trigger and you'll die._

I open my eyes and stare into my fake reflection. I want to watch Death as it claims me.

The door swings open.

_No._

My father stands there. The door swings closed behind him. He doesn't notice. His eyes are fixed on me. The gun.

_Die. Now._

"Taiki?" He sputters, eyes wide. I can see him in the window. I don't turn around to face him.

"Taiki. Taiki, please, listen to me. Please!"

_Shut up. Leave. Go away or I swear to God I will pull this trigger and shoot myself while you stand there helpless. Go away or you have to watch me die._

"I love you, Taiki. Put down the gun. Please, put it down!"

I can't do this.

_I have to._

I'll kill him.

My grip on the gun slackens. It lowers. My father visibly relaxes.

"There, there you go. It'll be okay. Just put it down-"

Then I remember what I need to do. End it. End this life. Close the blackhole. Killing myself is the only way to fix the unnatural balance I've created by entering this world.

My breath stops as I thrust the barrel of the gun to my temple again.

"No! No, please, Taiki. Please put the gun down."

Footsteps out in the hall. Miyako opens the door.

"Kenchiro? Is everything okay-"

"Call an ambulance, Miyako! Taiki has the gun."

I can hear Miyako gasp. I don't know if I heard the footsteps going away. I don't think she came in here. At least, I'm fairly sure.

"Taiki, please. Please, I'll do anything. Just put the gun down! It's okay, it's okay. You don't have to do this. You don't!"

I don't? Ha. I wonder if he can hear himself. Of course I have to do this. I have to die.

My father isn't crying. I can see him in the mirrorworld. His eyes are wide, his hands up to block God only knows what. He continues to speak, continues to plead.

Doesn't he know I killed my mother? I ruined his life? I should be Nothing to him. He should be able to go on with his life with Miyako after I Die. Get her knocked up. Maybe have a normal kid this time. One who doesn't see dead people. One who's not a **freak.**

_Do it._

My father continues to plead with me. Continues to tell me he loves me and I don't have to do this. He still doesn't cry. Strange. I watch as ice crystals slowly roll down my face.

_Die._

Colors swarm across my vision. My father says more words. I don't hear. There's a loud, incessant buzzing at my ears.

My mother is back. She, unlike Dr. Kayashima, is crying. Sobbing, really. She takes the hand that isn't holding the gun, the one that isn't ending my life. I finally Understand. She is here to take me On. That's why she has been here all along.

_Time to go._

I see the ghosts in the cemeteries. Bright auras, surrounding everyone I see. See my aunt screaming at me for being such a freak.

I see Ryoto. Being my friend. Letting me trust him. Betraying me. Driving me to suicide.

Then I see Osaka. My dorm room. Nakatsu, laughing as he comes home from soccer practice. Nakao's frightening bishoun face, viciously screaming at Noe and Sekime for being obsessed with Elicia and Rie, as they cower in fear. See Ashiya load her plate up with sweets. See Sano tease her about it. See Nanba get molested by Nakao as he sits down, followed by a dramatic entrance by Himejima, complete with roses appearing out of nowhere. For some reason, his twin brothers appear from behind him, doing yoga.

I see my father. I see everyone who loves me.

* * *

><p>The ice inside my heart cracks.<p>

The fire in my head flickers, then dies with a sudden puff.

No ghosts fly out of me. They were never really there.

* * *

><p>I drop the gun. It falls to the floor with a loud clatter.<p>

Before the gun even makes contact with the ground, my father has me in his arms.

I collapse. I have nothing left inside. Tears flow down my face freely. My father holds me tightly, unwilling to give me up to the harshness of the world.

"Thank God...oh, Taiki, thank God..."

For the first time in my cold life, I feel the warmth of everyone's love.

* * *

><p><em>I tried so hard,<em>

_And got so far._

_But in the end,_

_It doesn't even matter._

_I've had to fall,_

_To lose it all._

_But in the end,_

_It doesn't even matter._

* * *

><p><strong>O. M. G. I am...almost to the end!<strong>

**The thought of that scares me. A lot. In a sick sort of way, I totally love writing this. Though it usually leaves me insanely depressed, but it gives me an excuse to listen to depressing music. **

**This was by far the hardest chapter to write. Well...actually 9 was, because it was such an EPIC fail. :P I want to rewrite the entire fic now to exclude Zentaro. I mean, he's a cool character, and I'm kinda proud of myself for creating him, but he just DOESN'T BELONG HERE. (Get it, Zentaro? Get out of here! Away with you!)**

**And yes, I did post this earlier...and for those of you who read the first edition, I'M SORRY IT SUCKED SO MUCH! I was exhausted, having just worked twelve hours at the movie theater (my last day of work, I'm just going to throw popcorn at all the rude customers.) and I REALLY wanted to get the chapter done...but I forgot the first rule of writing. (For me, at least.) Quality before quantity. And I just said that because it sounds cool, because it actually means not to put anything out there but your very best. Well...I kinda think this whole story sucks now, and I want to rewrite it, or at least fix the glaring mistakes. Hmm...**

**Oh! My bro's coming home this weekend. (Hopefully.) It's been...I don't even know how long. All I know is that I miss my twin! **

**Umm...that's the update in my life. One chapter left. (screams) Review, they return missing unicorns to their owners. And make Kameko (or Chihiro, ChiChi, Shrimpledimp, whatever floats your boat, really) very happy!**

**Random Fact: A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time. The amount of time it takes light to travel 1 cm. That's pretty darn fast!**


	13. Black Tattoo

**This is an urgent message from ChiChi's stepbrother, whom prefers to be called Z, for reasons you cannot fathom. (Failures...)**

**ChiChi has been abducted by cowboys & aliens, or possibly the country of Peru. If you have any information regarding her whereabouts, please contact 1-800-THERESNOPLACELIKEHOME, or contact us at our website, puppets&penguins&pumpkins. net. Or, if you want to be excessively annoying, (and want me to come to your house by the nonexistant light of the new moon with a bowling pin) e-mail us at wednesdayducks at explosion. org. All information regarding her location will be excessively appreciated, so her can come home and drive Gregory to the cinema with his fifth grade friends.**

**Thank you for your impatience. -Z**

_**Cuts to a shot of Kameko, being held prisoner by a group of cowboys in the snowy mountains of Australia. **_

**"Z...work on your English..."**

_**Ignore this! I'm alive! (And Z found my open Document Manager file while I was getting some chocolate chip pancakes. Yes, at seven at night. My dad makes good pancakes.) And now proceed to Chapter 13. 'sobs'**_

* * *

><p><em>She's got this picture in her head of leaving.<em>

_Feels like there's nothing left, for no good reason._

_How could he hit her?_

_She wasn't born a quitter._

_And she never deserved to be treated like that._

* * *

><p>I don't know how long we were on the floor.<p>

After I dropped the gun, my dad had rushed to me, gathering me in his arms, keeping me protected from myself.

Thought came in broken fragments, splintered ice.

I still wanted to die. Not because of the fire in my head, but because I was so cold it felt like I would stop breathing anyway.

I reach for the gun again. My father grabs my wrists and holds both of them tightly in one hand, while using the other to press my face into his shoulder, stroking my hair.

Miyako comes in, telling my father an ambulance was on the way.

"Get the gun out of here, Miyako." He very near snaps. "I don't care what you do with it, just so he can't use it."

Miyako obeyed. My father whispers a soft _thank you _as she leaves the room.

My father presses his lips to my forehead, keeping his arms securely around me. He rests his cheek in my hair, breathing in my scent. A teardrop falls and lands on my hand.

"I love you, Taiki. I hope you know that."

* * *

><p>It turns out I was right when I said they were going to tie me up again.<p>

When the ambulance finally pulled up, I panic. I pushed my father away, frantically searching for a way out. A way out of the room, a way out of this life-I didn't care. I was scared. I didn't want to go back.

_Never going back..._

My father attempts to subdue me. I bat his hands away.

_Never..._

The EMTs burst into the room. They look confused, but try to take hold on my arm. I react like they're hands are made of fire.

"Careful! Don't hurt him! He's scared."

My breath comes out in short gasps as my father and Miyako talk to the EMTs. I shake in my father's arms. I can't think rationally. I know I need to go to the hospital; I know I need to live. But I can't tell my body to stop resisting. It won't respond. It's not mine anymore.

_Never going back..._

Finally, my father gently takes hold of one of my wrists.

"Taiki. Taiki, listen to me. They're going to give you something to make you calm down. Okay? They're not going to hurt you."

He holds the wrist out to one of them. It takes every ounce of self-control I have in my body to not yank it back.

One of the guys takes hold of my wrist _"Careful! Be gentle with him." _injects something into the soft flesh. The drugs take effect immediately. _"It's just going to put him to sleep. Don't panic." _My head feels like there's an ocean of soda between my brain and my skull. The liquid pops and crackles in my ears, sound murkily filters through, not quite making it to my brain. My limbs feel impossibly heavy, and my eyelids slide closed. _"When is he going to wake up?" _I can feel my father pick me up.

"It's okay. I can carry him. I want to."

I drift off.

* * *

><p>I don't know when I come back.<p>

They hadn't tied me down yet. The ambulance ride was over, and I was inside the hospital. Someone puts me down. I try to open my eyes. They're glued shut. A hand-male-takes hold of my wrist.

I'm awake.

I can't count them all. I don't know who they all are. But they are trying to wrap the cords around my limbs, keep me locked in place.

_Get them off...get them off!_

I thrash around, trying to get free, run...I don't know.

_Away...got to get away..._

One of the doctors grabs my arms and thrusts down. The nurses take advantage of my position and wrap the cords around my wrists.

I think I black out there. Because they next thing I know, the doctors and nurses are gone and my father is sitting with me.

* * *

><p><em>She leaves a letter as she leaves his place,<em>

_Still feeling all the bruises on her face._

_She only wanted,_

_To feel like she was wanted._

_And that all changed when he broke that bottle._

* * *

><p>Recovery is hard.<p>

There's no other way to put it. I can't say that the doctor's are making it difficult, or the program is stupid, or my floormates are distracting me. I don't pay attention. I focus on recovery. And it's hard.

I want to cut. I want to open my skin. Sometimes I feel like I might explode if I don't. But they locked up everything sharp and cut my fingernails so I had no hope.

I take a breath. _Intact. Intact means to live. Blood will kill you. The cut will kill you._

Something I feel like the ghosts have snuck back into my to whisperscream '_just one won't hurt. Just once. You can handle it.'_

I shake my head. I'm addicted to cutting like an alcoholic is addicted to drinking. Because one cut will lead to two, which will multiply and become crisscrosses across my arms X's across my chest, until I look in the mirror and find-

_No._

I can't handle a cut. I can't handle even one drop of blood.

Lesson learned.

I don't cut. Whenever I think about cutting, I start thinking about Noe, and that awful look on his face the day he found me, the haunting sound of his scream. The memory itself is enough to banish the thoughts.

The doctors are still not very helpful, but now I'm ready to comply. I ignore their impatient aura's and focus on myself. Why do I want to cut? Why do I want to die? _Because I was sick. I'm still sick. But I'll make it._

They nod and give me gold stickers for going along with it. I roll my eyes.

When I'm not in therapy, I read. Whatever I can get my hands on. Poetry, biographies, short stories, anything. I immersed myself in the different words and breathe in the scent of dusty tomes, crinkling paper.

I write about books in the journal they gave me. I doodle sometimes. Other times I write about how much I miss my friends from Osaka. My parents. Sometimes I rant about Ryoto. Yell at him in my brain. Forgive him. Miss him. All in one penstroke. Millions of times.

I ignore the other kids on my floor. The depressed boys, the anorexic girls. Rebelling. Dumping their food in the plant, hiding forks in their sleeve. Neck deep in the snow. Running away from help, running away from the pain. They don't want to face it. Not now, not ever.

I keep my nose in my book and don't respond when they offer an earring or safety pin-anything sharp. I don't get involved. I hope they figure it out. Before it's too late. But I've made my own mistakes. I got here on my own path.

Recovery is something you need to do for yourself.

* * *

><p><em>She grabs her keys and she drives on down the road,<em>

_Her thoughts flashing through her mind like vertigo._

_But she knows,_

_If she stops,_

_Then she'll just go back._

_Her mother told her she was smarter than that._

* * *

><p>They don't let my friends from Osaka come visit me.<p>

They come to the hospital, asking about me. The nurses don't tell them anything. I ask to be allowed to see them. They shake their heads and smile at me. What I want doesn't matter to them.

Nakatsu asks my father about me. He tells him the cold truth. I ran away. I spent two days with my mother's ex-boyfriend, thinking he was my biological father. I left and stole my father's gun and stood there with the barrel pressed into my forehead until my father finally coaxed me into dropping it.

Not pretty.

I'm healing, though. My wounds were lethal; they would have killed anyone weaker than me. I was stronger than the cuts.

_Strong. _Part of me want to tattoo that on my arm, right on top of my scars. I'm strong. I breathe it in, relishing in the fact. Strength smells good. Life smells good.

My parents visit almost everyday. Sometimes Miyako can't make it. Sometimes my father can't. Sometimes they're both busy and try as they might, they just don't have the time to drive to the hospital before visiting hours are over.

I don't mind. When they are here we sit and shovel through years of the muck. My father tells me he did love my mother, but only because she was carrying his child. He says he regrets not loving her as a person now. I don't know if I believe him. I decide it's between my parents. It had no effect on their love for me.

My mother still hangs around me. She still won't speak to me, but she seems happier now. She doesn't look sad when my father holds Miyako in his arms when she cries. Doesn't roll her eyes at Miyako's unabashed cheeriness. She looks peaceful. I know my mother wishes she could have loved my father too.

One day when Miyako had to drive up north for a nephew's birthday, my father brings in a white envelope with the hospital logo in the corner. My stomach twists itself into knots when I see it.

"I want you to know that no matter what these results say, I still love you."

My mother stares at the envelope like its existence offends her. I wonder if she really knows. If she really knows anything more than we do.

My father sits with his head down, looking at the envelope, but making no move to open it.

"Do you really want to know?"

My father looks up, startled I said something. He looks down again on the piece of paper, then laughs softly to himself. Bringing the envelope up with one hand gripping the top, he uses the other to make a smooth rip down the middle. He puts the two slices together and makes another rip; diagonal this time. He tosses the pieces into the trash. I smile when my secrets are locked away forever. I don't want to know. I really don't.

_It doesn't matter._

* * *

><p><em>Whatever happened to the world,<em>

_When did she stop dreaming?_

_No matter what,_

_She never stopped believing._

_She said,_

_I want a life that's filled with meaning._

_I don't want anything else._

* * *

><p>My aunt didn't get a copy of the test, as a result of trying to forge the last ones. I hear she's pissed. I don't really care. She can't run my life. I'm done being controlled by people who are afraid of me.<p>

Zentaro, however, did get a copy. I don't know why. They let him visit me on a day my father had to work and Miyako was visiting a sick friend.

I feel terrible because he started drinking after he woke up and found out I left, but he tells me not to worry.

He says he's going back to school to study psychology. He says he wants to learn more about depression in adolescents to help combat the nightmare I share with all the others. He knows how much I hate the doctors who are just in this for the fat check my father hands them.

I'm happy for him. In the back of my mind, I think that he's kinda old and he doesn't have much money, but I ignore it. He seems happy when he talks about it. Happy he can prevent someone else from hurting the way I did.

It's not until he leaves he mentions getting the envelope in the mail. I ask him if he opened it. He said he has.

I don't want to ask. Dying to know. It's funny to think, one piece of paper could have controlled how everything played out. Had it come to be fifteen years earlier, it could have controlled my whole future. Could have destroyed it. Who knew?

He sensed my internal struggle. He just smiles sadly and pats my head.

"Don't worry about it, Taiki. Everything happens for a reason."

* * *

><p><em>And she said,<em>

_You might have got the best of me._

_But you'll never get the rest of me._

* * *

><p>The snow is gone when I get out.<p>

My father leads me out of the hospital doors, hand clamped on my shoulder. He's afraid all over again.

_"I'm scared too."_

I shake my head. I can do it. I'm strong.

I close my eyes and breathe in the warm smell of the blooming flowers, the pink cherry blossoms. I open my eyes to look up at the endless blue sky. A few gray clouds hover at the edges, but they don't worry me. It's spring. It's going to rain. It almost makes me laugh. Rain.

I shed my coat as we get into the car. He turns on the radio. I turn down the heat. We drink in each other's presence, happy enough to be here.

Miyako waits up for us when we get home. She presses me into her shoulder and cries happy tears.

I just smile. It's good to be home.

* * *

><p>I convince my parents to let me return to Osaka. I had been trying to get them to allow me that for weeks, but until now I've been met with adamant NO's.<p>

They don't want me away from them. They don't want to risk my head going dark again. And them not able to do anything about it.

I tell them I want to graduate. I want to go to college. They've always been supportive of my education before, why not now?

_I know why._

They tell me my freshman and sophmore year grades are good enough that I don't have to actually finish my sophmore year. I wrinkle my nose. I want to finish out the year. I want to go to Osaka for my senior year. I want to be with my friends.

Finally, they reluctantly agree that Osaka is where I need to be.

My friends are happy to have me back. Even Noe, who at least hasn't jumped to the conclusion I died and am now back to haunt him.

My first day back, people stared. I tried not to let them bother me. But I felt the heat of their glares. Heard the whispers. Saw their hate. Smelled their fear.

One thing I've never really understood is why people are _afraid _of me. Creeped out? Alienated? Of course. I expected that. Even Noe's feelings; fear of the dead.

But afraid of me? I never did anything to them. I instead chose to turn my destruction inward. And they gossip. Act as if I'll whip out a knife and turn on them next.

I shake my head. _It doesn't matter._

My friends protect me. One Dorm 1 guy yells something to me at P.E. about a week after I went back to school. I stop, stunned. Something we read in class comes floating back to me.

_'People sure can be awfully cruel to each other.'_

Got that right.

Before I can react, Sano takes hold of my arm and pulls me away. Mizuki tries to restrain Nakatsu as he screams obscenities. Part of me wants to laugh, even as Nakatsu gets detention for what came out of his mouth. Everyone else laughs, too. Except Nakatsu, of course.

* * *

><p><em>I'm not afraid to be who I am.<em>

_Because nobody told me that I couldn't be that._

_I wanna scream it like it's never been said._

_But I mean it like a black tattoo._

* * *

><p>Breathing is hard. Healing is hard. Living is hardest.<p>

But I'm stronger. I'm stronger than the ghosts-the real ones-who bid me to join them. Who are lonely. Who just like ruining lives.

I'm stronger than depression. I'm stronger than the knives and razors and guns that push their way in.

Accepting that the demons weren't real was hard for me. No-that's not right. The demons _were _real. But I couldn't take a knife to myself and try to cut them out. They weren't just imbedded into my skin.

_They were part of me._

I am the demon. I am the ghosts that hammered away at my bones and tried to suffocate my heart; freeze me from the inside out.

Once I realized that, it made not cutting easier. Just a little bit.

Once I started working at turning the ghosts inside me good instead of destroying them, my heart picked up. Blood flowed through my veins. My ice ribcage melted away. I had to grow a new skeleton to replace the frozen one. That's okay, though.

Ryoto emails me. I delete every single one without reading it.

I don't know if I can ever truly forgive him. I know I'll never forget the stab in my heart when he joined the others in torturing me. Never forget the the feel of the rope around my neck. Never forget the longing for the coffin.

That's okay, though. I'm beginning to learn I don't have to-no, I _shouldn't _forget. Forgiving is something else entirely. Forgiving means giving up changing the past. Forgetting means to allow it to happen again.

My head hurts when it hears the word. _Again. _The doctors told my father that, especially considering my unstable psychological history, it was unlikely that I wouldn't suffer a relapse. Unlikely I would never cut again. Unlikely I wouldn't think about killing myself again.

I shiver, and remind myself that relapses are okay. I can make mistakes. As long as I can always bounce back from them. Focusing on my weaknesses will only make me less likely to succeed. Success is to fail. You just have to keep moving forward.

I take my pills.

My anti-depressant. Anti-hallucinogen. My red pill, I don't really know what to call it, but it makes the blades in my head disappear. I don't have to worry about them appearing on my skin.

I still see ghosts. The doctors say the anti-hallucinogen isn't working, are will be 'adjusting my meds accordingly.' My dad's trying to get them to take out that pill entirely. Says I never needed it in the first place.

I just laugh.

I've learned that nobody really fits in. It only appears that way.

Nakatsu worries about being too annoying; scaring people off. Nakao worries about being gay. Mizuki worries about being discovered she's a girl. Sano just worries about everything. Noe worries about ghosts. Sekime worries about girls.

We don't fit perfectly with each other. We're not interlocking puzzle pieces.

And that's what makes our group beautiful.

I smile at my friends over my novel. Sano teases Ashiya about fruit. Nakao badgers Nakatsu about being gay. And Noe and Sekime are in their own little world, oblivious to everything else. It's all fine with me. This is where I fit in. Right here.

I've learned there's no such thing as a cure. Swallowing a pill everyday is not going to make all my problems go away. Not even close. I have to work. Everyday. Just to get up in the morning, sometimes.

But that's okay.

Happiness comes one step a day. Happiness comes from smiling at one thing every day, for no reason. Happiness take work.

Happiness is not always bright. It's not always easy.

But happiness is getting up every morning, and smiling at the new day, and all it's challenges and opportunities it has in store for you.

I take my time. But I'll get there. I know I will.

* * *

><p><em>I don't want to care about what everyone says.<em>

_I don't want to live inside a past that's dead._

_I want to touch down where miracles live._

_And show it like a black tattoo._

* * *

><p><strong>This marks the thirteenth and final installment of <span>Living On A Prayer.<span>**

**Gasp! No! I just started! How can I be finished?**

**I will never again ramble about Kayashima's life failures, or talk about ridiculous characters or dialogue I made up in my head. Never again confuse you with ridiculous plots and random plot bunnies. NEVER!**

**Well...I guess I could. But it would be weird.**

**HUGEHUGEHUGE thanks to ALL of my reviewers/subscribers and my wonderful, wonderful readers who stuck with my this far, as I sang random songs to you and made up characters that serve absolutely no purpose at all. You. Are. All. Amazing. Seriously. You don't know HOW thankful I am to each and every one of you.**

**I would also like the thank the music world, including the works of Evanescence, Linkin Park, and FM Static, all whose work appears here. And also everyone else who gave my inspiration. (Playlist for this chapter includes 'Like A G6' 'Turning Tables' 'Dynamite' and 'Down') I love music. And Disney!**

**Also my English/Creative writing teacher who's not afraid to tell us in class that 'Dobby the house elf blew that son of a b*tch Lucius Malfoy halfway across the f**king room.' You. Are. Awesome.**

**And my amazing family. Though my parents drive me insane with having sex in the pool and my evil stepsister is, well, evil, and my little bros and sister and big half-bro drive me absolutely insane, I know I can count on you. Especially you, Z, my brother from another mother. (In China!) And my twin, Taiki, of course. Who still isn't home. But will hopefully be home before the week ends.**

**Reviews are much appreciated. They will also be rewarded with a sacrifice of first-born child. Or my evil stepsister, Anya. Tell me, what did you like most about this? What was the most ridiculous thing you heard me say? What were your favorite songs quotes? What must I improve on? Should I include llamas in my next fic? Milk, bison, or noodles?**

**And now I will leave you with a quote from one of the greatest men who ever lived.**

**"Keep moving forward." -Walt Disney**


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